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G.W.DILUNGXAM, 
PUBLISHER 
‘NEW YOJWC. 


Mrs. Mary J. Holmes’ Novels 

Over a MILLIO N Sold. 

THE NEW BOOK 

Dr. Hathern’s Daughters 

JUST OUT. 

“As a writer of domestic stories which are extremely interesting 
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Her characters are true to life, many of them are quaint, 
and all are so admirably delineated that their conduct 
and peculiarities make an enduring impression 
upon the reader’s memory.” 


The following is a list of Mary J. Holmes’ Novels : 


TEMPEST AND SUN= 
SHINE. 

ENGLISH ORPHANS. 
HOHESTEAD ON THE 
HILLSIDE. 

’LENA RIVERS. 
MEADOW BROOK. 
DORA DEANE. 

COUSIN MAUDE. 
flARIAN GREY. 

EDITH LYLE. 


DAISY THORNTON. 
CHATEAU D’OR. 
QUEENIE HETHER 
TON. 

DARKNESS AND 
DAYLIGHT. 

HUGH WORTHING- 
TON. 

CAMERON PRIDE. 
ROSE MATHER. 
GRETCHEN. 


ETHELYN’S MIS- 
TAKE. 
fllLLBANK. 

EDNA BROWNING. 
WEST LAWN. 
HILDRED. 

FORREST HOUSE. 
HADELINE. 
CHRISTMAS STORIES. 
BESSIE’S FORTUNE. 
MARGUERITE. 


Dr. HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS. (New.) 


All handsomely printed and bound in cloth, sold everywhere, 
and sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price ($ 1 . 50 ), by 

G. W. DILLINGHAM, Publisher, 

S3 WEST 23rd STREET. NEW YORK. 


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DILLINGHAM’S GLOBE LIBRARY, No. 14. 

JUNE, 1896. ISSUED MONTHLY. $6.00 PER YEAR. 

ENTERED AT THE NEW YORK POST OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER. 


THE 

MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 

21 ftTood. 

B V 

FRfiDfiRIC BfiCHARD. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH, 
BY 

Mrs. JOSEPHINE DOUGLAS. 




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new yorkK^ 


Copyright, 1896, by Estate of 

G, IV. Dillingham, Publisher, 

MDCCCXCVI. 

[All rights reserved ., j 































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CONTENTS. 


PART I. 

PAGE 

THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX 9 


PART II. 

TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS 57 


PART III. 


MIONETTE. 


251 





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PAET FIRST. 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX 


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PART FIRST. 

THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


I. 

Thanks to the beautiful poem of Mireio , thanks 
above all to the railway from Marseilles to Lyons, 
which traverses the little desert of Crau, few per- 
sons at the present day are unacquainted with the ex- 
istence of this second Arabia Petrea that Providence 
has placed near the marshy soil of the Camargue, and 
not far from the green mountains of Cevennes, as if 
to unite at a single point, in our admirable France, 
climates the most varied and soils the most diverse,— 
Egypt, Holland, and Switzerland. Meanwhile if 
Crau, with its sands and its pebbles, with its phe- 
nomena of mirage and oasis, has ceased to be a 
stranger to us, its neighbor, the island of Camargue, 
clasped as it is between the greater and lesser 
Phone, and without any important road of communi- 
cation, has remained nearly unknown. Hardly ever 
1 * 


10 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVATTX. 


has mention been made of its herds of wild horses, 
degenerate descendants of Arab coursers which 
have been abandoned by the Saracens, and its 
troops of black bulls, left to themselves in its great 
salt pastures. It is, however, a curious and pictu- 
resque country, this uninhabited Holland, from its 
very monotony, — a tract as vast as certain kingdoms, 
throughout which you will not find a single city, and 
everywhere intersected with canals and ditches of 
all descriptions. Some portions of it are green and 
luxuriant as a Norman field, others solitary and des- 
olate as a heath of Brittany. In this unpeopled 
country, under an ardent sun which is reflected in 
its tranquil waters, and which at evening disap- 
pears through a golden mist behind the graceful 
ramparts of Aigues-Mortes, silence has so much 
majesty, solitude breathes a sadness so penetrating, 
that the most vulgar soul must yield to their inspiring 
influence. One day Chateaubriand came to visit 
this corner of the earth. At the end of a week he 
was yet under its charm. He neither wished nor 
was able to tear himself away from this strange 
island, so much the melancholy of nature here har- 
monized with the genius and melancholy in the 
soul of the great poet. 


THE MONK OF FRANQITEVAUX. 11 

The soil of the Camargue is not much divided up, 
and contains but a very small number of inhabi- 
tants, and those are, for the most part, from Provence 
and the lower Languedoc, who are drawn to the 
island by the insufficient number of its laborers and 
the high prices given for work. Of the two or 
three scattered hamlets on this half -submerged land, 
the most important is situated at the mouth of the 
Rhone, outside of the Delta, and contains about five 
hundred inhabitants. It is the mysterious village 
of the Saintes, the Mecca of the Camargue, the 
holy object of an annual and popular pilgrimage ; it 
is the shore where tradition locates the shipwreck of 
the three Marys of the New Testament, who were 
tossed about in their frail vessel by the tempest, and 
cast ashore near the spot where still stands the 
church consecrated to their memory. 

Two or three periods during the year the culti- 
vated part of silent Camargue is peopled with a 
noisy crowd. From the neighboring villages, at the 
time of the harvest and the weeding, an army of young 
girls hastens to pick out the parasite-plants and tie 
up the wheat sheaves. The charming costumes and 
the vivacity of these women, who resemble the 
northern peasant about as much as the gazelle does 


12 the monk oe franqttevattn. 

the quiet sheep, their laughter, their songs and the 
sonorous brilliancy of their Prove^al language, so 
beautifully accented in every mouth, so lovely on 
the lips of a pretty girl, animate the landscape, and 
in this country, where the remembrance of Greece 
and Rome is still so fresh, recall involuntarily to 
mind the idyls of Theocritus and Virgil. 

As to the uncultivated and purely marshy part, 
it is only in summer that it presents any animation. 
The sun having dried the swamps, the reeds are 
changed to yellow. On all the roads for ten miles 
around which lead to the Camargue, you will encoun- 
ter under the oblique fires of the setting sun, innu- 
merable files of wagons, enveloped, like a convoy of 
camel-drivers in the desert, in a thick cloud of warm 
and suffocating dust. The discordant cries of the 
muleteers, who constantly call from one to another, 
mingle with the noise of the little bells, and the 
grinding of the heavy wheels upon the stones of 
the road is not loud enough to drown the piercing 
chirp of myriads of grasshoppers that blacken the 
neighboring almond-trees. Sometimes the wagoner 
questions the horizon with an anxious look. He 
examines whether from the side of the Saintes 
some black cloud does not mount to the heavens 


THE MONK OF FKANQtJEVAUX. 


13 


and, advancing toward the north, threaten them 
with a storm. Arriving in the Camargue about 
daybreak, you may there see the crowd of laborers 
disperse through the marshes, already occupied by 
the mowers, and each team take in its load of 
reeds. Toward mid-day the same procession returns 
by the same route. Then men and beasts, the red 
or brown beards of the former, the black or white 
coats of the latter, all disappear under the gray 
uniform of the same dust, and the wagons high as 
houses, with a small white tent rising from the top, 
under which one of the wagoners usually dozes, 
find their way slowly and with an even balancing 
movement toward their homes abandoned since the 
previous night. 

To the great delight of the engineers and road- 
masters, who each year see their roads broken up by 
these heavy convoys, to the great delight above all 
of the wagoners themselves and their mules, over- 
fatigued by night marches and by a labor without 
shelter under an overpowering sun, this rude work 
lasts less than a month. From the first rains of 
September, the water retakes possession of its do- 
mains, and man is driven away. As far as the eye 
can reach, a clear sheet of water covers the marshes 


14 


the monk of franqttevatjx. 


and sparkles in the sun. The Camargue again be- 
longs to its sparse and pale population of fishermen 
and hunters of the water-fowl, and to its natural in- 
habitants — the swans and bustards, returning from 
the north, and the ibis and flamingoes which come 
back from Africa. The truth is, from its position 
on the borders of the Mediterranean, this region 
serves as a place of refuge or station for all birds 
which, driven from their native climate by the cold 
of winter or the too-ardent heat of summer, travel, 
isolated or in flocks, in search of a more genial 
sky. 

Notwithstanding the incredible quantity of game 
which abounds under these rushes and in these 
ponds r hunting is too difficult for hunters ever to 
become numerous. The only months of the year in 
which the large migrations take place are October 
and March, and during these seasons a few perse- 
vering sons of St. Hubert come from Marseilles, 
Nimes, and Montpellier, and take up their quarters 
in some solitary hut in the midst of these waters. 

The reputation of the Camargue as a marsh-hunt- 
ing country has even crossed the seas, and of late, 
more than once, amateur hunters have been seen 


THE MONK OF FKANQUEVAUX. 


15 


with their guns on their shoulders, coming from 
England, where they have left the Thames and the 
Clyde and their fox and grouse, to go flamingo- 
hunting on the banks of the .Rhone. 


r 


16 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


n. 

Last autumn, being obliged to make a prolonged 
sojourn at the South, I thought I would take ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of 
such a hunt myself. Unfortunately, the premature 
rains which had inundated the island, rendered all 
sport for the time impossible in the heart of the Ca- 
margue. I therefore resolved to stop at the marshes 
and ponds situated on the right bank of the lesser 
Rhone, since the bad weather and damaged roads 
had put an end to my intended excursion to the bor- 
ders of the Yaccares. 

At the very point where terminates the damp and 
marshy soil which extends as far as the canal of 
Beaucaire — on almost the last limits of terra firma, 
arose formerly the celebrated Abbey of Franquevaux. 
It was gracefully seated on the declivity of a beauti- 
ful hill, covered with secular forests on the northern 
slope, while from the south it appeared almost to float 
in the submerged plain. The revolution has demol- 
ished this learned monastery, dispersed its inhabitants, 
burned its books and its woods, and the hills ? which 


THE MONK OF FEANQUEV AUX. 


17 


were formerly covered with majestic old oaks, are 
to-day left crowned with vines and grapes. Red 
partridge are found in abundance on these vine- 
planted hills, and from the bridge, which is in the 
form of a sugar-loaf and thrown over the canal of 
Beaucaire, you can, at certain hours, perceive in the 
distance whole flocks of wild geese and ducks, swal- 
lows, and sea-gulls, hovering in the last rays of the 
setting sun over the ponds of Vauvert and Scaman- 
dre. On the very ruins of the convent, covering a 
small space of ground which would bear well the 
comparison to a large farm-yard, are grouped five or 
six little houses, forming a hamlet and called Fran- 
quevaux, having inherited its name from the abbey. 
It was there I hired for a short time a little white- 
washed room facing the South. 

On the very evening of my arrival, as I was start- 
ing out to reconnoitre, accompanied by the peasant 
in whose house I had my room, and who had been 
kind enough to serve me as a guide on this my first 
expedition, I observed a hunter walking in front of 
me, smoking his pipe, and preceded by a mag- 
nificent hunting dog. I had heard too much of the 
flunters of these parts and their Robinson-Crusoe 


18 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


garb, not to be struck by the simple and decent dress 
of the one whom I had here before me. 

“ Is that a stranger ? ” I inquired of my host. 

“ No, sir,” he replied, “ we consider him one of 
our countrymen. He has lived a long time in Paris, 
but has taken up his residence with us during the 
last few years. He never leaves the hamlet, except- 
ing an occasional Sunday, which he may pass at 
Saint-Gilles or Nimes, or twice a year, perhaps, he 
goes to the fairs of Saint-Roch and Saint-Michel.” 

“ What is his name? ” 

“His name is Maurice Yernier. But we only 
speak of him as the monk of Franquevaux.” 

“ The monk ? ” I exclaimed with astonishment. 

“ Yes, we have given him this name because he 
lives in solitude, and shuns people of his own rank 
in life ; because he shuts himself in, when the bad 
weather prevents him from hunting or fishing, to 
read during entire days the books that he procures 
from the neighboring town ; and because he never 
refuses to assist poor people with his alms and his 
good counsels, like the old hermits of the past who 
sleep to-day under these rushes. Ah ! if you could 
only manage,” added my guide, “ to make his ac- 
quaintance, and he would invite you to become his 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAtJX. 


19 


hunting companion, you might consider yourself too 
happy. He is the most intrepid hunter in the coun- 
try. Oh ! heavens ! how he brings them down, the 
poor little creatures.” 

We hastened our steps, and very soon found our- 
selves side by side with the mysterious hunter. 

“ Say, monk,” cried my guide, suddenly accosting 
him in the familiar patois of the country, “ here is a 
gentleman from Paris, whom I am out hunting with 
to-day, but as I have much work at home, would you 
be so kind as to take him in charge and pilot him ? ” 

The hunter, casting his eyes on me without reply- 
ing, examined me a moment with curiosity ; then : 

“ I am perfectly willing,” he answered briefly, in 
the same idiom. 

“ Good ! ” replied my host, addressing me ; “ you 
are a man who is not much to be pitied. The monk 
grants you a favor he does not bestow on everybody, 
and which the gentlemen from Nimes and Mont- 
pellier, who come here sometimes snipe-hunting, 
would be furiously jealous of. You have nothing 
better to do now than to trust yourself entirely to 
him, and I swear to you that in changing your guide 
you have lost nothing.” 

I eagerly accepted the change, and, after the cus- 


20 


THE MONK OF FKANQUEVAUX. 


tomary courtesies, I started off with the monk of 
Franquevaux. 

lie was a man still hale, although he might have 
reached his fiftieth year, vigorous, active, of mid- 
dling size, and of a constitution which seemed 
formed by nature for a hunter. The ease with 
which he carried his gun, and an enormous game 
bag crossed over his chest by two large leathern 
straps like a soldier’s knapsack, his light but firm 
step, his sunburnt skin, all indicated a man broken 
to long and difficult tramps ; at the same time his 
look, his delicate and slightly melancholy smile, as 
well as a distinguished air which marked his 
slightest movements, betrayed a person who has 
lived in cities and in the best world. 

After walking a few moments : 

“ You are from Paris, sir? ” he remarked with an 
accent which dissipated any doubts that might have 
lingered in my mind. 

“ Not precisely, but I live there.” 

“ To whom have I the honor of speaking ? ” 

I gave him in full my name and my profession. 

“ Ah ! you are a writer ? ” he exclaimed with 
vivacity. “ So much the better, because your profes- 
sion must have necessarily brought you in relation 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


21 


with many of my friends, my old friends,” lie 
added, with a sweet but sad smile. 

“ You have lived in Paris ? ” I inquired of him, 
puzzled as I was by this half confidence and in the 
hope of bringing about a more complete disclosure. 

“ I have.” 

“And who are the writers you have known 
there?” 

“ Bless me I nearly all,” he replied, with the most 
natural smile in the world. 

He then spoke without the least affectation, and 
without appearing to question the astonishment 
caused me by hearing such words on the lips of a 
hunter, accidentally met in the marshes of the Ca- 
margue, of Theophile Gautier, Arsene Houssaye, 
poor Gerard de Nerval, and of the painter, Camille 
Rogier, whom he had well known, and how they had 
lived together in the rue du Doyenne, these four 
friends, and given those delightful entertainments 
so beautifully described by Gerard. 

“ Alas ! ” added he, “ the rue du Doyenne no 
longer exists; Gerard is dead; Camille has disap- 
peared under an Eastern sun. As to the other two, 
I congratulate them with all my heart on their suc- 
cesses, and when it rains I read their works, and in 


22 


THE MONK OF FBANQTJEVAUX. 


memory turn lovingly back to those who have writ- 
ten them.” 

He inquired particularly of Jules Janin, and in 
two or three words described the apartment that 
this dramatic king of critics formerly occupied on 
the garden of the Luxembourg, and in a manner 
that convinced me he had often had the honor of 
being admitted there. Then the conversation would 
dwell by turns on Victor Hugo, on Lamartine, on 
Alexandre Dumas, on Balzac, on Scribe, on all the 
brilliant authors of the present epoch, dating as far 
back as the revolution of February. My astonish- 
ment was transformed into stupefaction when I 
heard him comment upon the political men of the 
last reign, as familiarly as on its writers and poets. 
Without any doubt, he had known them, he had 
lived among them. This strange hunter, only pre- 
occupied henceforth with eel-fishing and duck-hunt- 
ing, had really passed the first part of his existence 
behind the curtain, which, upon the theatre of the 
world as well as on all others, separates the stage 
from the house and the actor from the public ; he 
had penetrated into all the side scenes of the 
literary, dramatic, and political world. 

While conversing we found ourselves on the bor- 


THE MONK OF FRANQITEVATJX. 


23 


der of the pond. My guide jumped lightly into 
a little boat which lay concealed in a small inlet, 
and made a sign for me to follow. From the mo- 
ment I had taken my place by his side, with a 
quick push of his foot he started the boat very 
rapidly, and seizing the oar he steered the frail 
skiff through the rushes with an extraordinary skill. 
We very soon came to a little isle, where he moored 
his boat, and we directed our steps toward two 
shelters constructed of branches on the water’s edge. 

“ Now,” said he, when we were posted, “ silence, 
and attention to the ducks ! We will talk literature 
some other time.” . . . 

Night approached. Behind some clouds, white 
and flaky as a lamb’s-fleece, and which a slight wind 
from the north had hurried toward the sea, ap- 
peared already in the east the reddish disk of the 
moon, which stood forth like a balloon of fire on 
the deep azure of the sky. Its first rays were re- 
flected in the waters of the pond, and shed around 
us a sweet and caressing light, which recalled to 
my mind the pale glimmer shed by the winter sun 
through the morning mist upon the people of the 
north. With fixed eye, stretched neck, my ear on 
the watch, and my hand on my gun, I was mute 


24 


THE MONK OF FRANQTTEVAUX. 


and immovable at my post during half an hour, in 
spite of quite a stinging cold, and commenced to de- 
spair, when all at once I heard over my head a rust- 
ling of wings which lasted for a second. It ap- 
peared as if a shadow with the rapidity of lightning 
had passed over me. At the same moment a shot 
was fired, and I recognized the dull sound which 
is caused by the fall of an inanimate body in the 
water, and through the splashing of the waves I 
very soon distinguished the hunting dog of my 
guide, taking possession of the prey to fetch to his 
master. Not a word had been exchanged between 
us. A few moments had scarcely passed when 
another report was heard. Within an hour seven 
shots had been fired and seven pieces of game 
brought down. How my companion was able to 
hit the birds as they passed like an arrow through 
the darkness, and. which I could not even see, was a 
miracle my admiration was unable to account for, 
and can only be explained by that nervous sensibility, 
that extreme delicacy of hearing, and that unerring 
eye which the habit of hunting develops to such 
a marvellous degree amongst savages and poachers. 

The darkness having become quite dense : 
“Halloo! friend,” called my neighbor, “now for 


TtiE Monk of FRAftQtJEV Atrx. 25 

home ! Messieurs the ducks, and mesdames the 
geese have gone to bed now, and the hour has come 
when we will catch more rheumatism than game. 
Let us be off.” 

I rejoined him and he took me back as rapidly as 
he had come, while I lavished exclamations upon 
the remarkable feat I had just witnessed. 

“I sincerely hope, sir,” he remarked as we re- 
turned on foot to Franquevaux, “that our acquaint- 
ance will not end here. If there is nothing to 
prevent, will you have the kindness this evening to 
share my frugal supper? It is not, believe me, an 
idle politeness that I offer ; it is a favor I request 
of you. The few words we have exchanged have 
aroused within me a thousand remembrances. I 
would like to recall, during an hour or two this 
evening, my past life, and I will be very thankful 
to you if you will aid me in conjuring up, through 
the smoke of our pipes and in a cosy chat at the 
fireside, all those charming and sad phantoms.” 

I accepted the invitation without much urging, 
and after having gone to the house and changed 
my damp clothing, I directed my steps toward his 
home. 


2 


26 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


nx 

The monk of Franquevaux occupied a small 
house, or rather a kind of structure contrived be- 
tween two arches, last remains of the old abbey, 
and built with the stones taken from the ruins of 
the monastery. The four principal walls of this 
hermitage were evidently the original old construc- 
tions which had escaped the hammer of the revolu- 
tion. The entrance door, narrow and low, opened on 
a corridor, at the end of which was a modest stone 
staircase leading to the apartments. To the right 
of this corridor was the spacious and airy kitchen, 
shining with its bright tinned casseroles, copper 
kettles and table china, and the range placed 
under an immense chimney mantel. When I 
entered, the long spit was turning before a sparkling 
tire and exhibited one of those succulent and 
golden roasts, unknown of late in Paris, where the 
roasters and the patent oven, under pretext of 
progress, have replaced the spit, condemning our 
epicures to roasted meats, as insipid and flabby as 
boiled beef. The dog which accompanied us on 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


27 


the hunt was seated on his hind legs near the fire, 
warming his nose and drying his hair. A beautiful 
girl of twenty years, in Provei^al costume, super- 
intended the preparations for dinner. Her nicely 
drawn-up stocking, which was visible from under 
her short skirt, suggested a well-formed leg, her 
close-fitting corsage of a shade deeper than her 
skirt brought out a perfect form, and a light hand- 
kerchief of red foulard, slightly opened at the neck, 
permitted a glimpse of its whiteness and healthy 
outline. Her raven hair, escaping in two evenly- 
divided bandeaux from under her Arlesian turban, 
crowned her pale face, which was of an exquisite 
outline, while her winning and sweet eyes were 
like those of a young girl in her first dream of love. 
As for me, whom the sight of certain cooks would 
disgust with the finest dishes, this lovely interior 
simply charmed me. After some moments of con- 
templation, in which I must admit there was nothing 
platonic, and following the direction of the girl, 
of whom I inquired where I might find her master, 
I ascended the staircase, and opening the first door 
I saw, I found myself in the dining-room. 

Imagine a large square room hung with old tapes- 
tries representing a variety of hunting scenes, and 


28 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


furnished with large and commodious leather chairs 
and an enormous carved oak table in the centre — * 
an exquisite piece of furniture, on which the artists 
of the sixteenth century seemed to have exhausted 
their marvellous genius; imagine further one of 
those huge chimneys of olden times under which an 
entire family could gather at evening around the fire 
to listen to some pious legend of the grandfather 
or some fairy tale of the grandmother ; and, lastly, 
imagine an oaken buffet, carved like the table and 
the chimney-piece, and covered with porcelain of 
various shapes, pretty china articles of all dimen- 
sions, plates and vases of different colors, and you 
will have but an imperfect idea of the astonishment 
I experienced on finding such richness and comfort 
where I expected only to see the plain, coarse fur- 
niture of a simple villager. To crown all, an an- 
cient clock placed on a pedestal of most exquisite 
workmanship so enthusiastically excited my admira- 
tion, that the master of the house, noticing my pres- 
ence, came in to welcome me, and took me to the 
next room, which was the one he usually occupied. 

It was a small library or study room, filled with 
books and hung with pipes of all descriptions, from 
the ordinary clay pipe to the Cummer. The seats, 


THE MONK OF FEANQTTEVAtTX. 


29 


extremely simple in their form, were that kind of 
immense arm-chairs which at the present day are no 
longer made, with high backs, low, wide bodies, and 
projections on each side of the back to support the 
head and arms. A thick carpet more comfortable 
than expensive, which came from the factories of 
Nimes, covered the floor. In a corner a round closet 
inclosed five or six fire-arms bronzed by smoke, the 
common appearance of which might have elicited a 
smile of pity from a Parisian hunter. But for me, 
what I had just witnessed was another proof that, 
with guns as with hunters, the most elegant are not 
always the most terrible. Near the chimney, lying 
her full length, was a beautiful hunting dog, spotted 
white and red, with her nose delicately resting on 
her outstretched paws, and her eyes lazily closed. 

“ You know Barbot,” said my host, showing her to 
me, “ my dog of the marshes ; this is Fauvette, which 
I use on the plain. One of these days, if agreeable 
to you, we will go and hunt among the vines near 
Valcombe, and there you will see her work. She is 
the only one in the country that hunts the red par- 
tridge as neatly as she does the quail. The poachers 
of Saint-Gilles pretend that she has the evile} r e, and 
that she fascinates our shy partridges, so easily these 


30 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAFX. 


swift- winged creatures allow themselves to be killed 
under her nose. 

My host, according to custom, insisted upon show- 
ing me, even to the smallest details, all the comforts 
of his little home. We entered his bed-room. An 
immense bed, one of those old canopied beds, resem- 
bling a battle-field, in which our fathers slept at the 
time when the father of Mai thus himself slept by 
the side of his wife, half disappeared under thick 
curtains of serge. The draperies of the windows 
and the portieres were of the same material, and 
harmonized with the sombre paper which concealed 
the walls. Two pictures, slightly darkened by time, 
but in which it was easy to recognize the hand of 
some unknown master, adorned a chimney as severe 
as the rest. A massive ebony bureau, ornamented 
with brass carvings and surmounted by an antique 
mirror with bevelled edges, stood facing the bed. 
Throughout the room were scattered two or three 
easy chairs furnished with cushions, which were for- 
merly called bergeres, a sofa of an ancient model, and 
two modern cliauffeuses. I do not speak of the 
carpet, as it was nothing remarkable and evidently 
had no other object than the simplest comfort. 
Nevertheless, in all the furniture it was impossible 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


31 


not to observe that the monk of Franquevaux had 
done everything in his power to render inactivity 
easy and repose sweet, without any aim at either 
luxury or vanity, and above all without sacrificing 
anything to the exactions of fashion. In looking 
upon the contrast between this house where every- 
thing was so snug, so impregnated with the perfumes 
of well-being, and so thoroughly disposed for the 
charm of inaction, the comforts of sleep and the 
delicacies of life, and the man who inhabited it, per- 
severing hunter, inured to fatigue, and perpetually 
on tramps over the rocky hill-sides or through the 
reeds of the marshes, it was impossible not to feel 
charmed in spite of one’s self by an indescribable im- 
pression of intimate and sweet contentment. After 
a long day’s hunt in the hot sun, or after a rainy 
evening’s watch, how delightful must be the return 
to this hospitable dwelling ! What voluptuousness 
in this repose and this silence suddenly succeeding 
so much fatigue and noisy activity ! And what a 
thorough knowledge of the spiritual and material 
being was displayed in the intelligent arrangement 
of this hunter’s home, the home of the monk of 
Franquevaux ! 

A little door contrived in the wall, behind the bed- 


32 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


curtains, opened on a room which served at the same 
time as a toilet and bath-room, and which contained 
those thousand little necessary nothings useful for 
this double purpose. Two other rooms, also fur- 
nished in a comfortable manner, but extremely sim- 
ple, completed the habitation of my host. One of 
these was his own, or, if you like it better, his bache- 
lor’s apartment ; the other, which is ordinarily called 
the spare room, did not bear that name, but was 
called the room of the unknown. The monk of 
Franquevaux had no friends. It was there he re- 
ceived the few travellers delayed by the bad 
weather, or the hunting companions he always 
tried to avoid, but whom an inevitable meeting or 
accident obliged him sometimes to receive. 

“This,” he said, when we had seen everything, 
“ this is my palace. It is small, but I am happy here. 
In winter I calk up the cracks against the furious 
winds which too often desolate these latitudes. In 
summer the arrangement of the windows allows me 
to establish a natural ventilation which keeps in the 
apartment an atmosphere always supportable in spite 
of the overpowering heat which sometimes sweeps 
over this country like molten lead. I only receive 


TIIE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


33 


a few peasants, and they like much better to stop in 
the kitchen.” 

On retiring I threw a last look at the room, the 
delicate arrangement of which had struck me, and 
1 inwardly wondered if another shared it with him, 
when a door opened — 

“ My wife,” said my host. 

I remained dazzled, stupefied. 

England and Germany fascinate the traveller by 
the great number of beautiful and aristocratic faces 
he meets there. In Spain, Italy, Provence, that 
French Italy, he is repulsed by the stupidity and vul- 
garity of the greater portion of the women. Still the 
artists of the North are far from having attained the 
same brilliancy in the creation of their feminine 
types as the painters of the South. What woman 
of Rubens equals a virgin of the Italian masters ? 
Our French painters of the eighteenth century, so 
exclusively pre-occupied with love-scenes, have never 
found but pretty women on their elegant palettes. 
Raphael and Correggio, Andre del Sarto, and II 
Parmegiano, on the contrary, have left us types of a 
finished perfection. The beauty of their women is 
like a light from heaven. In order to succeed in 

reproducing this beauty so marvellously in their pic 

2 * 


34 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEYAUX. 


tures, they must have seen somewhere the original 
on earth. The truth is that this rare beauty, so 
pure that even age respects it and alters not the 
harmony of its lines, exists only among nations fa- 
vored with a sunny clime. The painters of the 
North have necessarily failed because on their un- 
grateful soil models have ever been wanting. The 
Italian painters have produced their masterpieces, 
because they most all have found in some beloved 
woman the incarnation of their ideal. Of all the 
feminine types, the Southern is at once the most 
complete and the most difficult to find. On this 
land, favored above all others, God has not willed 
that beauty, that emanation of himself, should be- 
come corrupted by being too much diffused — that 
pure gold should be represented by vulgar bullion. 
Greece and Italy have not been called the classic 
ground of the beautiful because we find there pret- 
tier women than elsewhere, but because the truly 
beautiful women which are sometimes seen in those 
countries are the highest expression of human 
splendor. 

She who stood before us offered the living reality 
of this ideal. It seemed to me, if I were a painter, 
I would fear to profane one of Raphael’s virgins by 


THE MONK OF FKANQTTEVATJX. 35 

fa 

copying her. I must beg my reader to excuse me 
if I do not even attempt to give an imperfect sketch 
of this woman, before whom the Gioconda and 
Fornarina themselves would have paled in the time 
of their greatest brilliancy. Tall and graceful, 
proud behind her sweet smile, the ancients would 
have said it was the head of Yenus on the body of 
Diana. Her costume was that of the rich Provengal 
farm-wife, which she wore with an adorable ease. 
But the purity of her form, as in a beautiful statue, 
effaced by its harmonious simplicity the brilliancy 
of her dress. A moment before, the charming face 
of the Arlesian servant, the coquetry of her attire, 
the enticing charm of her figure, had stirred in me 
a thousand confused sensations ; under the radiance 
of this new apparition, the only sentiment I ex- 
perienced was that of religious and mute admira- 
tion. She was one of those women whose beauty 
seemed reflected from a world superior to ours, who 
make us forget that they are women, and whose 
very perfection forbids a vulgar thought. 

“Dona Mion,” said the monk addressing her, 
u we have a guest.” 

“ I was not aware of the presence of a stranger,” 
she replied with sweetness in the Provencal idiom 


30 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


“ If the gentleman will be so kind as to accept for 
to-day our hospitality as he finds it, to-morrow 
and after, if it please God, we will endeavor to 
make him more comfortable.” 

“ There,” cried my host, “ you see, sir, how my 
wife understands hospitality. From the moment 
she has seen you cross our doorstep, she considers 
you as one of us until you leave.” “Dona,” he 
continued, addressing his wife, “ will you order the 
luggage of this gentleman to be brought here from 
the house where he stops and placed in his room? ” 

It was useless to offer opposition ; I was obliged 
to yield. The wife of my host then took the lamp 
and walked before us. 

“ Dinner is on the table,” she said, always speak- 
ing in Proven9al. “ If you will follow me, gentle- 
men, I will light you.” 

Entering the dining-room I felt the influence of 
that gentle and grateful warmth, without which the 
best repast is only a misery. The lamp that the 
mistress of the house had placed upon the table 
shed immediately around us a bright light, while it 
left throughout the rest of the apartment a gentle, 
harmonious shade. The dinner was simple but 
pxquisite, cooked to a turn, savory, light. Was 


THE MONK OF FRANQtEVAUX. 


37 


the result of the salutary exercise which I had been 
engaged in during the day ? Was it the happy dis- 
position of my mind, caused by this picture of 
delicious well-being, that I had for the moment 
before my eyes ? I cannot say, but never a supper 
had such a charm. The wife of my host talked but 
little, using always the Proven9al. Without any 
doubt she was a peasant elevated to the dignity of 
a lady. Did I witness then without suspecting it 
the hundredth performance of the witty comedy of 
“Leon Gozlan,” “Le lion empaille ”? The monk of 
Franquevaux, was he then some fast liver who had 
withdrawn from the world to marry his servant ? 
At all events, the admirable beauty of the wife 
fully justified the choice of the husband, and I said 
to myself, as I contemplated that Grecian profile of 
sweet purity, and that sculptured form, “ folly is 
often wisdom.” 

On the right of my host had proudly taken his 
place an adorable little child of three or four years ; 
he had a bright roguish face, with black, speaking 
eyes, while his blonde and silken hair fell naturally 
over his forehead in disordered curls. 

“ This is my son,” he remarked, with all the hap* 


38 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


pin ess of a father’s pride. “ My love for a solitude 
thus peopled, does it astonish you now ? ” he added, 
in a voice of profound and suppressed tenderness. 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


39 


IV. 

After dinner the pretty Arlesian servant brought 
a bottle of old brandy and two pipes. Madame 
Yernier took the child up in her arms, and after 
holding it out to the father, who gave it two tender 
kisses on its forehead, she discreetly retired. 

Plunged in the depths of our easy-chairs, our 
feet upon the fire-irons, we prepared, the monk and 
I, to finish quietly the evening. 

“ My dear sir,” said he, being the first to break 
the silence, “ confess that you are a little surprised 
at all you have seen here I ” 

I dared not say yes, but certainly my eyes did not 
say no. 

“ I am going to astonish you a good deal more,” 
he added, “Your arrival here has been unex- 
pected ; you have shared my daily bread, you have 
seen the details of my private life, and the little 
comforts with which I delight to charm my solitude, 
and all this may make you think perhaps that yon 
are visiting an important landed proprietor of the 
country.” 


40 


THE MONK OE ERANQTTEVAUX. 


“ Most certainly I do.” 

“ What will you say then when I inform you that I 
possess for my entire fortune but a small farm sit- 
uated quite near here in the neighborhood of 
Beauvoisin and Vauvert, and which brings me in 
on an average only four thousand francs a year. It 
is true I must count for something in my life this 
liberty, this happy enjoyment of the fields, which 
only costs me the trouble of walking over them 
with my gun upon my shoulder, and which all the 
pleasures, the most exquisite sights, the most ruinous 
seductions of Paris could not replace. It is true, I 
must also count in the wine from my vineyards, the 
vegetables of my garden, the bread made from my 
wheat, the poultry from my farm-yard, and the 
fruits of my orchard which garnish my table. It is 
equally true that the neighboring ditches and ponds 
furnish my fish, and the northern hills as well as 
the marshes of the south never allow me to want for 
game. Shall I even tell you, all the products of my 
hunting expeditions are not roasted in my own ovens? 
In a country where hunting is free, and the only one 
perhaps in France where it insures the existence of 
a few peasants who make a regular business of 
it, I can perfectly, without considering myself a 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


41 


poacher, sell quite a large portion of the game I 
kill, especially during the seasons of the great mi- 
grations, when I bring down each day a dozen geese 
or wild ducks, without counting the more rare and 
more valuable birds. There are certain months ol 
the year in which this interesting part of my income 
cannot be represented but by two zeros preceded by 
some respectable unit. The little house that I 
occupy has cost me less than three thousand francs. 
I have bought it for the reason that my farm-house 
is only an uninhabitable barn, and because I am here 
but two steps from the game of Camargue without 
being exposed to the fever of the marshes. As to 
this furniture, which seems to please you, it has cost 
me less money than search. It was in exploring 
the farms lost in the Camargue that I have hunted 
up, in one place, this old easy chair which laid for- 
gotten in a garret ; in another place, this buffet 
that had been left to mould in a corner of a stable ; 
farther on, this carved table, on which shepherds 
and beggars have eaten their cheese and vinegar 
in a smoky farm-kitchen; in some other place, 
again, these curtains have protected beneath their 
folds the loves of some vulgar boor and his rustic 
better half. Without doubt the expense of repara- 


42 


THE MONK OF FRANQtfEVAUX* 


tion has exceeded the price I paid for them ; but 
even so, I have certainly expended less money to 
obtain and repair this artistic furniture than it 
would have cost me to buy new in vulgar mahog- 
any. Moreover, all my purchases have had but one 
aim — comfort and well-being. I have furnished 
my dining-room with a certain elegance, because I 
have always found that one eats with a better appe- 
tite when the sight is gratified as well as the taste. 
I prefer old easy-chairs to modern ones, because 
they are more comfortable. And lastly, I have 
decorated my bedroom with somewhat rich dra- 
peries and a luxurious bed, because it is also the 
room of my wife, and whatever the song may say, I 
believe that love prefers the boudoir to the garret, 
and silk to straw. So you see that with a little 
industry and without too much vanity an honest man 
can, in spite of the great expense of living and the 
high price of rents such as they pay in Paris, exist 
in this world ; and it is not to the little birds alone 
that God dispenses food. When the year has 
passed, I find that I have not denied myself any 
pleasure I love. I have lived happily, with a 
healthy body and a light heart, thanking God each 
day that I was born ; my slender income, remaining 


THE MONK OF FRA.NQUEVAUX. 43 

almost untouched, turns gradually into capital, 
whereas most all inhabitants of large cities, after 
breathing an air vitiated by all sorts of unhealthy 
emanations, after suffering from all ‘kinds of desires 
and privations, only see the gulf of their debts en- 
larged, and feel themselves weighed down under the 
burden of a gilded misery.” 

“ I envy your lot,” I exclaimed. 

“ I dare say you do,” replied my host with a good- 
humored smile. 

“ There is, however, one thing which astonishes 
me : it is this title of monk which the people here 
obstinately persist in bestowing upon such a phi- 
losopher as you. Why, my goodness ! monks, if I 
am correctly informed, make a vow of abstinence. 
Now I have seen about to what extent you practise 
that virtue. As to the vow of chastity ” 

“ What does it matter ? ” said he cheerfully, inter- 
rupting me. “ I allow my neighbors to have their 
own say in that, as there is in reality some truth in 
the name they have given me. Like the monks of 
past times, is it not after all the dispelling of illu- 
sions, the detachment from the vanities of the world, 
which has thrown me in this solitude ? Who tells 
you even that, before resolving to exile myself here, 


44 THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 

I have not suffered from some incurable wound of 
the heart, as well as those men who, worn by passion, 
have sought repose in the cloister? Only while they 
fled from society with a bitter contempt, I experience 
for it but a gentle and indulgent disdain. As to 
their superhuman virtues, that religious ardor which 
they extended to suffering and maceration, I must 
confess I do not feel the courage for it. Is that my 
fault ? and moreover cannot one be a perfectly hon- 
est man and even an excellent Christian without 
sleeping on the points of nails, and without subsist- 
ing exclusively on vegetables? In all that is 
humane and universal, I may be compared to them ; 
what distinguishes me from them is the personal 
and material part of my tastes and habits. I am 
too much a man of my time not to cherish my com- 
fort. I recognize its legitimacy, I hail in it a 
natural law and a social progress. God is too just 
to seat us at the banquet that he lias himself served, 
for the purpose of condemning us to suffer the pagan 
torments of Tantalus. Provided I never refuse a 
portion of my bread or a place at my fire to the 
poor man who holds out his hand or knocks at my 
door for charity, what does it signify if I have a 
dish more at my dinner, and that my bed is soft and 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 48 

my house warm. The people of the country are 
not mistaken, and are perfectly convinced that they 
will always find in me a friend to assist them when 
they are in need, and they do not envy me the little 
material gratifications I procure for myself in my 
hermitage. I therefore accept without scruple or 
opposition the epithet they have been pleased to 
bestow upon me, knowing perfectly how much of 
truth and of exaggeration there is in it; and saying 
to myself that, after all, many monks have entombed 
themselves alive in the desert who have not suffered 
more from the world, and who have not felt for the 
vices of their age more contempt than I have for 
the deceptions of my own time.” 

“ Agree with me, my dear host, that these confes- 
sions, made with so much reserve, are well calculated 
to excite the most good-natured curiosity.” 

“Really?” he replied, smiling. “Well! your 
curiosity shall be gratified, although 1 cannot ex- 
plain to myself how the recital of an existence so 
commonplace as mine should inspire you with the 
least interest. A review of my past life will be for 
me what an old man would feel travelling once more 
over countries already seen in the days of his youth. 
But to-night it is too late ; our lamp becomes dim, 


46 the monk of franqueVauX. 

our fire has almost gone out, and eleven has just 
struck on the grave bell of the clock. I have ar- 
ranged in your honor a partridge hunt for to-mor- 
row, and we must be up by sunrise; so then, to 
bed.” 

Thereupon he took the lamp, and, with as little 
ceremony as if we had been friends for twenty 
years, he showed me to my room, and gently closed 
the door, not without having first pressed my hand 
and wished me a peaceful night and the sweetest of 
dreams. 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


47 


V, 

I was yet in a profound sleep when my host 
entered my room, candle in hand. 

“ Come,” said he, “ make haste and get up. It is 
now daybreak, and our men are below.” 

Our hunting companions were already waiting 
for us in the kitchen, gayly seated around a table 
placed before a large fire, clear and sparkling, made 
of vine branches and brushwood. Two of them 
were armed with guns, while the remaining four 
had sticks or whips. 

“ Master,” said one of them in patois to my host, 
u the wine is good ; we will be light-footed to-day.” 

“ There is not a breath of wind,” said another, “ and 
I do not think it will rise with the sun, because the 
sky was not red in the west last evening at sunset.” 

After a parting glass, each took his bag and gun, 
and we went out. 

The morning was keen and clear. In the east 
the horizon was already purple with that bright and 
concentrated light which precedes the rising of the 
sun. In the distance, toward the south and west, a, 


48 


THE MONK OF FRANQTTEVAUX. 


thin mist floated over the marshes and ponds. The 
last stars were fading away, and the skylark, shoot- 
ing upward, gave a joyous cry as if to salute the 
day. 

Our little company divided in two parties; the 
first, composed of the men with guns, took the lead ; 
the second, formed of those who were to turn off the 
game, followed in a slightly-oblique direction toward 
the left, in order to embrace a larger tract of 
ground, as well as to leave us the time to reach our 
posts. When we had gone about a mile, the monk 
pointed out to me a bush by the side of a vine 
and motioned for me to crouch. He took his 
place on the same line, some hundred yards farther, 
and our two companions imitated him, keeping be- 
tween them an equal distance. 

After ten minutes waiting, some distant cries 
came vaguely to my ears. Little by little the noise 
drew nearer ; I heard the snapping of the whips, 
the excited voices and the shrill whistle of 
our men, who with their heavy sticks beat the 
ground. Very soon three or four shots fired from 
my right awoke my attention. At the same mo- 
ment I saw shoot forth to the horizon what ap- 
peared like a black and movable point. Before 


THE MONK OF FEANQUEVAUX. 


40 


the shout of the men: Aviso,! had reached me, 
a partridge passed over my head rapidly as a leaf 
carried by a hurricane, and the same point appeared 
already, almost imperceptible, at the other extremity 
of the horizon. Quite confused by the noise and 
the speed, I had not thought of either aiming or 
firing. The monk of Franquevaux, without chang- 
ing his position, fired his two shots at two partridges 
which had ventured within his range, and killed 
them both. 

There was another silence. The men continued 
to move toward us ; they were quite near, when all 
of a sudden a new company of frightened par- 
tridges rose with a great clatter from the side of the 
vines where we were posted, and passed like a 
whirlwind near my host, who, for the second time, 
without the least excitement, without even abandon- 
ing his pipe or changing his position, brought down 
two more birds. 

By this time the men had finished their rounds. 
I went up to Maurice Vernier, to whom I expressed 
my admiration for his coolness and dexterity. 

“ Bah ! ” he smilingly replied, “ a mere matter of 
habit, that is all. When you have burnt as much 

powder as I, you will shoot just as well. Only 
3 


50 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVATJX. 


remember that to hit the red partridge on the wing, 
is not a shot of precision, but a shot of judgment. 
Calculate, on taking aim, the swiftness of the bird, 
the distance he is from you, and send your shot in 
advance of him in the line he follows. If you aim 
at the bird itself you will surely miss.” 

The sun by this time was up and radiant. The 
sky, of a limpid blue, promised one of those soft, 
glorious November days which in the South make 
us live over again the most beautiful days of May, 
shaded only by that tint of melancholy which is the 
poetry of Autumn. All around us we could see 
the farmers bent over their furrows, and chanting 
some monotonous melody. As we passed suffi- 
ciently near to hear their voices and reply to them, 
there was a shower of cries, questions, and noisy 
words of curiosity, which proved to me to what an 
extent the passion of hunting exists among the peo- 
ple of this country. Several left their mules and 
came over to us : “ Well! have you had good luck? 
Ah ! it is the monk, they will have need of every 
feather in their wings to-day, poor things. And 
the hare ? Have you seen the hare ? ” 

The hare is the legendary animal, the fantastic 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


51 


game, the monster of Gevaudan * of the hunters of 
that region. 

Toward eleven o’clock, after several battues, 
which all proved my host to be a most extraordinary 
shot, our little troop halted for breakfast, near a 
large well, surrounded by grand old trees. I will 
leave you to imagine if we did justice to the Arles 
sausages, and the old wine of Saint-Gilles. In the 
evening, after we had divided our game, we went 
back to Franquevaux, and each one in fine humor 
and good appetite regained his home. I, above 
all, who was not made for such excursions through 
the soft earth of the ploughed fields and the pebbly 
vineyards, experienced that lassitude which is not 
exactly fatigue, and which is already a desire for 
rest — delightful state of being, a kind of strengthen- 
ing and manly voluptuousness that invariably fol- 
lows a violent exercise in the open air. The rapid- 
ity with which the day had passed, the interest 
these thousand little incidents had inspired me, the 
forgetfulness of all painful pre-occupation that the 
absorbing distractions of the hunt had plunged me 
in, the intimate contentment that I experienced 
throughout my whole being, revealed to me the 

* A famous animal which in the last century spread terror and 
dismay in the province of Gevaudan (lower Languedoc). 


52 


THE MONK OF FRANQUEVAUX. 


charm of this healthy and free existence which had 
become a necessity for my host, and I now began to 
understand how he had finally come to prefer the 
easy carelessness of his solitary life, so varied in its 
uniformity, so active under its apparent inaction, to 
the feverish pleasures of large cities. 

The supper was ready and waiting for us. By 
the air of proud satisfaction with which the mistress 
of the house offered me certain dishes, I could 
plainly see that she had a hand in their composition, 
and as I am fond of good living, I could only con- 
gratulate myself upon it. Always serious and 
smiling, attentive and discreet, she presided over 
the repast with the silent dignity of a queen of 
Homer. I could not cease admiring this grave and 
serene beauty seemingly so unconscious of her- 
self, that Athenian profile of such admirable purity, 
and that bust which recalled the most marvellous 
productions of Grecian art, at the same time saying 
to myself, while tasting the appetizing stews of the 
Proven9al kitchen, that my queen of Homer was 
equal to any Parisian cordon bleu. After supper 
she withdrew, as on the previous night, with a silent 
adieu full of reserve and grace, and I remained 
Jilone with the monk of Franquevaux. 


THE MONK OF FKANQUE V ATJX. 


53 


“ Peraiit me,” I said to him, when we were com- 
fortably seated, after having filled our pipes, and be- 
fore the smoking cups of coffee brought us by the 
Arlesian coquette, “ permit me to remind you of 
your promise of telling me your history. I am 
eager for you to commence. We have everything 
to ourselves ; the fragrance of this coffee has already 
revived my spirits, and has made me forget my 
fatigue. We will never find a more propitious 
moment.” 

“Then you really wish it?” he replied. “I 
have warned you, however, that my prosaic life 
does not offer a single exceptional attraction. It is 
only because I have felt, perhaps more keenly than 
others, those little contrarieties in life from which 
no one escapes in the world, that I have taken 
refuge in this solitude.” 

“ So much the better ! ” I said, interrupting him ; 
“ romantic exceptions, simply because they are ex- 
ceptions, have no value whatever in my eyes.” 

He then extended his feet on a chair placed be- 
fore him, settled himself a little deeper in his arm- 
chair, poured out and sipped a small glass of old 
brandy, urging me to do the same, and commenced 
thus: 


* - - 1 










































* 
















































































\ 












r! * 














■ - - 


































> ♦ 











■ 
























































































































/ 





i 

PART SEOO ND. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 

- 




































PART SECOND. 

TWENTY YEARS IN PARI& 


L 

My earliest recollections carry me back to a period 
very remote from the present. It was in 1815 ; I 
was four years of age. I see yet, as through the 
mists of a dream, my poor mother, seated, overcome 
with grief, by the side of my father, who, dressed as 
a chasseur, with his gun hanging over his shoulder, 
and the white cockade on his hat, held me in his 
arms and covered me with caresses. 

“ Well, the hour has come,” said he finally, in a 
resolute tone, setting me down and tearing himself 
away frohi the last embrace of my mother. 

The latter suppressed a sob, and with a voice she 
exerted herself in vain to strengthen : 

“ Courage ! ” she remarked. “ God, who loves 
France, will protect the honest people who love their 
king.” 


3 * 


58 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


Left alone she turned toward me, and looked at 
me for a moment, her eyes moist with tears; then 
her pent-up grief gave way, and, leaning over, she 
pressed me to her heart with an expression of ar- 
dent tenderness, and murmured in my ear between 
two kisses : 

“ Dear little one, before you I can weep. Before 
him my tears would have been cowardly, because 
they would only have saddened him without having 
power to keep him with us.” 

This scene occurred at Tarascon, where my father 
had gone in order to join the little army of volun- 
teers that the Duke of Angouleme commanded on 
the borders of the Rhone. Like all the Catholic 
population of the province, my father had thrown 
himself into this royalist movement with a sort of 
mystical exaltation. My mother, also a royalist, and 
more catholic still than he, had herself encouraged 
him to take up arms for the cause, that she called the 
cause of God, and it was her desire to accompany 
him as far as the last halting-place. The improvised 
soldiers of the king were no match against the vet- 
eran troops of the emperor. The campaign was 
short. Still my father did not return without 
wounds. After the capitulation of the royalist 


TWENTV VEARS m PARIS. 


59 


troops, as he was crossing a village hostile to the 
white flag, the mob pursued him with stones, and 
crying furiously, “ Death to the miquelet ! ” For- 
tunately for him, some honest people coming to the 
rescue succeeded in getting him out of the hands of 
the populace. He escaped with only the cut of a 
scythe, given him by some enraged fellow upon his 
shoulder, and from the effects of which he always 
bore the scar. 

At the second return of the Bourbons, my father 
refused to set forth his devotion to their cause as a 
claim to royal favor, and contented himself by retain- 
ing for them in the depths of his heart a passion- 
ate fidelity. His opinions, alternately soured by de- 
feat and exalted by success, partook of a religious 
superstition rather than a political conviction. Un- 
der the influence of his example and his faith I grew 
up with the same sentiments, and at the age of 
eight or ten years I lisped, with the same instinctive 
fervor, the cry of “ Vive le Koi ! ” as I did my 
morning and evening prayer. 

Kestored again to his home, my father resumes 
his usual habits. Ten thousand francs of income, 
joined to the two hundred thousand which consti- 
tuted the fortune of my mother, insured him an 


60 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


honorable existence and allowed him to attend to the 
wants of the poor around him. More than one-third 
of his revenue was consecrated to intelligent and dis- 
creet charities ; all the unfortunate of the country 
knew his door and blessed his name. It seemed as 
if his charity had found the art of multiplying his 
resources, and whether it was convenient or not, his 
purse was always made to respond to the appeals of 
his heart. He passed seven or eight months of the 
year in the country, superintending his haying, har- 
vests, and vintage, and his winters at Montpellier. 
Very soon, however, this peaceable and easy life be- 
came irksome to him. His intelligent mind was 
tormented by a restless desire for activity. Serious 
studies, favored by a natural talent, had made him a 
chemist of the first order, and the consciousness that 
he had of his merits spurred on his self-love and in- 
cited him to publish his works. He had just made 
an invention invaluable for our country, a kind of 
distilling apparatus, to facilitate the transformation 
of wine into brandy ; but only preoccupied with the 
glory of his discovery, he disdained to realize the 
profit, and saw nothing in it but a triumph for his 
vanity. A devouring thirst for celebrity was in 
reality — together with his charity, henceforth pro- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


61 


verbial throughout the country — the only passion of 
my poor father, his happiness, his life. He not only 
sacrificed with all his heart the legitimate salary of 
his labors to some trivial compliments of the draw- 
ing-room, but he would have sacrificed to them, if 
needs be, his very fortune. For him, the shadow 
was the desired goal. 

At the age of twelve^or thirteen I entered college. 
Without modesty I proclaim that I left it crowned 
with all the laurels and all the volumes bound in 
calf that the University lavishes on its graduates. 
These remembrances are always vivid in my mind, 
and often in my dreams I see myself crossing the 
college-court, amid the flourish of trumpets and 
applause, to receive my crowns upon the stage 
where were seated the brilliant Areopagus, in their 
red robes and embroidered coats. Dangerous ap- 
prenticeship of life! Among all these heroes of 
Greek theme and Latin verse, how many are there 
not to whom the illusions of school success, followed 
by the deceptions of riper years, have only served to 
render life more bitter ! 

My father was intoxicated with my triumphs. 
Could he, who so doted upon the cajoleries of 
opinion and the caresses of the public, he so flat- 


62 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


tered by the slightest eulogy in some country news* 
paper, could he imagine a sweeter or more intense 
joy than this clapping of hands, these trumpets, 
these noisy acclamations bestowed upon my name, 
which was his? After my brilliant studies, if I 
equally distinguished myself through a course of 
law, what else would there remain for me to wish 
for? As little seriously ambitious for me as for 
himself, my father was more pre-occupied with the 
triumphs of my self-love than with the exigencies of 
my future. Chemist as he was, you see that he was 
still more an artist, with all the disinterestedness, all 
the amiable improvidence, all the imperious vanity 
of the artist. Although a professed royalist, he was 
so only in principle, for practically, and in his own 
family lie cultivated but little the idea of “ heredi- 
tary succession,” since he so readily sacrificed the 
interests of the latter to the gratification of self-love 
and personal ambition. 

After three years, passed at the law-schools of 
Toulouse and Aix, I returned to the country with 
my mother, whom I devotedly loved, and who was 
then suffering from the first attacks of a disease of 
the lungs. I have not yet spoken to you of my 
mother — she was a saint! I adored and I ven- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


63 


erated her. How could I help devoting myself 
with all my soul to that tender, resigned, and an- 
gelic being ? I see her yet with her pale features, 
her emaciated face, and her eyes brilliant with a 
feverish fire. She felt her life consuming away 
within her, without shedding a tear, without offering 
a complaint, concealing from us her frightful suffer- 
ings, in order to spare us a moment of unhappiness. 
My affection for my father was mingled with I 
know not what impression of jealousy, awakened in 
my heart by the love of self which devoured him, 
and by that thirst for vulgar celebrity which con- 
cealed from us the best part of his nature. My 
mother only lived in us and for us. Her malady 
made rapid progress. I conjured her to pass the 
winter under the more genial skies of Nice ; but 
she refused, not wishing to leave for a single mo- 
ment my father, who, on account of his labors, was 
obliged to remain in France. Finally one day, one 
of those sad, rainy days of November, when the 
south wind scatters about under a cold gray sky the 
last leaves of autumn, the doctor announced to us 
that there was no more hope. 

At these words my host stopped, as if oppressed 
by a frightful dream. A moment of painful silence 


64 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS, 


ensued, and I saw some tears roll over that sun- 
bronzed face. 

“ Have you your mother yet, sir ? ” he inquired 
with a trembling voice. 

“ Thank God, yes,” I replied, by a motion of the 
head rather than with my lips. 

“ You would not then be able, whatever love you 
bear to her, to understand the rending of your 
" whole being when is torn from your side, in order 
to ascend to heaven, that creature who has given 
you birth, nourished you from her bosom, and whose 
very life is yours.” In spite of all my tenderness, I 
could not have conceived before experiencing it 
what were the sombre depths of such a grief. 

He remained silent again ; then with a visible 
effort : 

That day,” he continued, “she was quietly 
seated in her large easy-chair between my father 
and myself, her face turned towards the winter sun, 
which was also pale as she. We pressed her hands 
in ours, as if to keep with us that dear soul, ready 
to take its flight. All of a sudden, without speak- 
ing, without tears, she fastened upon us a long, 
lingering look, accompanied by an ineffable expres- 
sion of love, the sweetness of which had nothing left 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


65 


of earth, smiled sadly, and drooped her head 
All ! what memories are these ! what sad, sad mem- 
ories ! . . . The next day I accompanied her 
to her last resting-place. As far as the cemetery I 
walked with a firm step; but there, before that 
hideous and yawning grave, about to ingulf what 
seemed to me a part of my own being, when I 
heard the dull noise of the stones.” . . . 

A sob stifled the voice of the monk of Franque- 
vaux. 

“ Then,” murmured he through his tears, “ then 
everything seemed shattered within me and around 
me ; a black cloud passed before my eyes, the 
ground appeared to steal away from under my 
feet. . . . Only in the evening I returned to con- 
sciousness in my bed, where my father, standing by 
my pillow, awaited with anxiety my return to life.” 

During several days he did not leave me. I 
blamed myself for so badly mastering my grief, and 
so constantly reviving the sorrow of that excellent 
man by the spectacle of my own. The thought that 
I must henceforth live alone on the earth crushed 
me, for between my father and me, my mother had 
always seemed the link that held us more closely 
together. The want of activity and renown which 


GG 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


dominated him, might it not end by taking him 
away also, thus making me doubly an orphan ? 
These were my thoughts, when finally, at the 
end of a few weeks, I saw him take up again 
with renewed ardor his favorite occupations. “ La- 
bor can alone console,” he said. But, alas ! labor 
had no solace for me. Giving himself up entirely 
to his scientific researches, he endeavored thereby to 
drown his unhappiness, going, coming, hurrying, 
never stopping two days in the same place, multi- 
plying his experiments, devoting all his time and all 
his energies to the development of his discoveries — 
and above all his celebrity. From Paris and Lon- 
don constantly arrived chemical instruments of 
every description, the house was encumbered with 
alembics, retorts, and furnaces of all dimensions. I 
never knew exactly the amount my father expended 
on these numerous purchases, I only felt uneasy 
about this incessant labor on the score of his health, 
and never suspected that this devotion to science 
could prove disastrous to his fortune. The success 
of his self-love was to him a remuneration for all 
his trouble and expense, and I inwardly blessed a 
passion which gave to his lonely life and his griefs 
such powerful distractions, What days of rejoicing 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 67 

wore those when my poor father discovered in the 
papers of the Department some lines in honor of his 
inventions or his pamphlets; the joy of his heart 
shone in his look ; he carried his head higher ; the 
dry pavement of the street resounded clearer under 
his more nimble feet, and on his lips one could read 
a sort of benevolent commiseration for the poor 
beings who had never merited the honors of pub- 
licity. 

The solitude in which my father lived, his multi- 
plied labors, his incessant activity, his indifference 
for everything which related to his material com- 
fort, at length suggested to me many serious reflec- 
tions. He was yet young; would he not think 
sooner or later of marrying again ? That nature so 
impressionable, so delicate, could it live without an 
intimacy, a support, a companion to surround him 
with the material cares of existence ? I loved and 
respected him too much not to feel that any opposi- 
tion on my part to such a desire, should such a 
one ever be formed, would be improper and cruel. 
On the other hand, my tenderness for my poor 
mother, my holy veneration for her, would hav® 
rendered the presence of another woman in that 
bouse too grievous for me. In order to conciliate 


68 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


these two opposite sentiments, I saw there was but 
one thing to do. I resolved to go away. The sad- 
ness which overpowered me was besides trans- 
formed into a kind of sickly melancholy, which the 
physicians all agreed it was important I should 
throw off, and which my father implored me each 
day to combat with all my energy. I made him 
acquainted with my project. 

“ An excellent plan ! ” he said, highly gratified at 
the announcement. “ This is a thought worthy of 
the blood that flows through your veins. Yes, go 
to Paris, my son. Ah ! why did I not go there my- 
self in my youth ? There alone can one make a 
name!” . . . 

I did go, but I might have dispensed with the 
journey, since the idea of leaving w r as suggested to 
me solely by the desire to further any possible ar- 
rangements my father might wish to make. lie 
did not remarry, and I might have foreseen it. 
Could he experience henceforth another love than 
that of admiration and fame which hovered around 
his name, and was he not one of those men destined 
from their very natures to live alone, for whom per- 
sonal distinctions, the enjoyments of vanity, and the 
pursuits of their chimerical fancies, take the place 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


69 


of all the emotions of family life ? Remaining 
alone he plunged more profoundly into his absorbing 
labors, and the entire house assumed the aspect of 
an immense laboratory. 

The revolution of July, which had just broken out, 
was alone able to reanimate the heat of his Jacobin- 
ism and snatch him for a moment from his habitual 
occupations. During a few days I even feared some 
imprudence from his irritated royalism. Fortunately 
the rapidity of the crisis, and the wisdom of those 
who restrained in these difficult days our excited 
population, prevented a movement which could have 
only had for result to draw upon that part of the 
country a terrible and prompt repression. 

About this time I had observed that my father 
kept up a warm and active correspondence with 
the Count de Brugal, one of his oldest friends, whose 
life he had had the good fortune to save during 
the short royalist campaign on the borders of the 
Rhone, and who, since 1815, had lived in Paris. The 
family of Brugal, who came from the lower Lan- 
guedoc, was one whose origin dated back from the 
most remote antiquity ; only their ancestors had be- 
queathed them more authentic parchments than his- 
torical records. The present count, little known as 


70 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


he was outside a certain political circle, was by 
far the most illustrious man of his antique race, 
lie honorably resigned, the day after the revolution 
of July, the lucrative position which he occupied 
under the Restoration, and which had secured dur- 
ing fifteen years the existence of his family, ruined 
by the first revolution. 

On leaving, my father gave me a letter to him. 
Provided with this introduction I was sure of a 
friendly and almost paternal reception. The fortune 
of the count was not sufficient to allow him to live 
very elegantly in Paris. However, the antiquity of 
his name, the high offices lie had held, and the solid- 
ity of his political opinions maintained his authority 
over the aristocratic society and the royalist party, 
and in his modest home I was sure to find more 
than one useful protector. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


71 


n. 

The Count de Brugal received me with Cordiality. 
He was a man about forty-five years of age, with a 
pleasing countenance, a clear, sympathetic voice full 
of kindness, and a warmth of manner suggesting 
the soldier rather than the courtier or diplomatist. 

“Young man,” he said, extending me his hand; 
“your father is my best friend, and I regret for the 
first time, on seeing you, my lost influence. Never 
mind, if I can do nothing of myself, there yet re- 
main some friends to me, whom I will interest in 
your future. The conduct of M. Yernier towards 
me has imposed on me a debt that my entire life 
would be insufficient to repay.” 

“ A debt ? ” I inquired with astonishment. 

“ What ! you do not know ? ” lie exclaimed with 
vivacity. “Noble heart! his discretion doubles the 
value of his devotion. Thank Heaven, I am not 
bound by the same reserve. Yes, my friend, your 
father after my resignation thought that my affairs 
might be somewhat embarrassed, and wrote to me, 


72 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


in the name of our old friendship, and placed his 
entire fortune at my disposal.” 

The correspondence of my father with the count 
was at last explained. I felt within me an intense 
pride to find myself the protector of my protector ! 

“ And now,” he observed, with an animated voice, 
“ let them come and talk to me of the divisions and 
antipathies that exist between the different classes of 
society, of the envy of the one and the pride of 
the other. As for me, I only make two distinctions, 
the scoundrels and the honest people ; the nobility 
as well as the rest of mankind has its due share of 
both.” 

I assented without replying. He continued : 

“What means, if you please, that big word of 
liberalism which divides us all ? Your father is an 
obstinate royalist, is he not ? Do you know, how- 
ever, a mind more independent, a heart more gen- 
erous than his ? They call me an aristocrat ; I was 
put in office by the ‘last tyrant.’ That honest, 
loyal, good Charles X., a tyrant ! . . . . Well, let 
them show me a man more liberal at heart than I. 
It is not by vain words, by invoking on all occasions, 
in order to violate them more freely afterwards, 
these principles of ’89, which have so broad a back, 


TWENTY YE AES IN PARIS. 


73 


that a government proves its liberalism ; it is by its 
acts. Now the government which I mourn found 
despotism, but has left us liberty. It found France 
invaded by strangers, overwhelmed with debt, bled 
to the last drop, and has handed it over, free, flour- 
ishing, and rich, to the king of the revolution. It 
found, the day after Waterloo, an army enfeebled 
by disease, exhausted by misery, decimated by the 
cannon, mutilated remnants of twenty glorious cam- 
paigns, and gave it back, the day after the capture 
of Algiers, reconstituted, victorious, formidable. 
We found a soil trodden by the foreigner, a disor- 
ganized power, and we have inaugurated a govern- 
ment which, after nobly resuming in Europe the 
rank that the deplorable misfortunes of the empire 
had caused France to lose, had finally grown strong 
enough, when our good neighbors, the English, 
wanted to prevent us from planting our flag in Af- 
rica, to send them about their business. It is true,” 
added lie, with a bitter smile, “ that England has paid 
it back, capital and interest. The royal family, who 
travel at this moment from France to Scotland, and 
from Scotland to Germany, know something of 
that.” 

In speaking thus, the count grew quite enthusias- 
4 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARTS. 


n 

tic; the frankness of his gesture and the sincerity of 
his language charmed me. Under these generous 
words I felt every fibre of my royalism vibrate. A 
little more, and I would have called out “ Yive le 
Roi,” even with more enthusiasm than my father 
himself. 

“ And do not believe,” continued the Count de 
Brugal, “ that I speak in my own name alone. I 
will introduce you in society, and you will j udge for 
yourself whether the most sensitive patriotism has 
ever spoken a different language than ours. As to 
myself, may the occasion come to prove my liberal- 
ism, and then you will see. . . . 

“ Meanwhile,” he continued, changing his tone, 
“my house is yours. Do me the pleasure of dining 
with us this evening; I will present you to the 
countess. Until you have completed your arrange- 
ments, a place will be kept for you at my table. 
Faith ! I will not say it is the old regime, for it is 
rather a poor one, this regime of ours ; but however 
that may be, if our modest home suits you, you will 
be treated with us like a son.” 

Accordingly, the same evening the Count de Bru- 
gal introduced me to his wife. Notwithstand- 
ing my slight experience of the world, I instantly 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


75 


recognized in her the high-born lady. In the most 
flattering acceptation of the word, she was distinguee 
without effort, intelligent without pretension, hold- 
ing her position without undue superiority, affec- 
tionate without familiarity, and lastly, kind and sim- 
ple, without for a moment becoming commonplace. 
Meanwhile it was easy to see that she was yet far 
from the somewhat loud liberalism of her husband. 
If, to a degree, she could understand it was necessary 
to admit to power certain men chosen from the ranks 
of a people apart from the nobility, she could not 
make up her mind to open her drawing-rooms to 
their wives. She looked upon those people with the 
same air of protecting superiority as a Rachel or a 
Malibran must have considered a poor itinerant ac- 
tress. Her royalist opinion^ were with her an affair 
of blood, her aristocratic instincts a matter of nerve. 
As to the events which had just been accomplished, 
she manifested for them neither hatred nor anger ; 
she simply looked upon them with contempt. 

The two children of the house dined with us ; one 
was a boy of eight years, named Robert, one of 
those lovely little fellows, with clear complexion 
and blue eyes, who look everywhere alike among 
all aristocracies, and may be seen gravely seated in 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


Y6 

the emblazoned coaches of their mothers, in Hyde 
Park, or in the Champs Elysees ; the other was a 
young lady of seventeen years, graceful and beauti- 
ful, who owed to the traditional veneration of the 
Brugals for I cannot say what unknown heroine of 
their race the somewhat strange and feudal name 
of Iolande, which name had been religiously trans- 
mitted from generation to generation to the eldest 
daughter of the family. 

My protector was not satisfied by admitting me to 
the intimacy of his domestic fireside ; he wished to 
introduce me also into the brilliant world in which 
he lived, and, thanks to him, I found myself well 
received in several houses of the old nobility. 
Those salons resplendent with gold and light, those 
high-sounding titles in the midst of which came 
out so poorly my vulgar name, those beautiful wo- 
men rendered more beautiful still by the simplicity 
of their attire, those diplomats bedecked with rib- 
bons of every color — so much grace, luxury, and 
elegance dazzled me. Afterwards, however, this 
sort of enthusiasm vanished and gave place to a 
sentiment of an entirely different nature. In spite 
of the friendly reception which was bestowed on me, 
I finally grew ill at ease in a world where I was not 


TWENTY YEARS IN RARIS. 




born ; the truth is I did not feel at home there. In- 
stinctively I understood that our political relation 
was the only tie which connected me with them. 
Under the expressions of sincere cordiality which 
were lavished upon me, it was easy, when my name 
was pronounced for the first time, for me to observe 
certain little imperceptible signs of sympathetic as- 
tonishment, which proved what an abyss separated 
me from the society where I had the honor of being 
received. I felt that my opinions procured me an 
admittance by favor, but that I was not entitled to 
be there by right. If I was sought with so much 
eagerness, it was because the presence of a man of 
my name in their salons appeared to these minds, so 
inclined to illusion, so prompt to hope, the most 
brilliant proof they could give of their liberalism, 
and, at the same time, a significant symptom of 
the reaction which according to them commenced 
to manifest itself among the bourgeoisie in favor 
of the monarchy. 

Moreover, it is only after a long time and by the 
lesson of experience that all these refiections have 
come back to my mind. At the period of which I 
speak, I never thought to account to myself for the 
involuntary embarrassment that I experienced in 


78 


TWENTY YEANS IN PARIS. 


these circles of the nobility, nor above all to ascer- 
tain the secret motive of a reception which I found 
quite natural. Did we not share the same senti- 
ments? Were we not subjects of the same king, 
slaves of the same faith ? Did not my fortune also 
allow me to appear with honor in that world to 
which I had already linked myself by so many pow- 
erful arguments ? 

Ten or twelve thousand francs of income — this 
was about the amount left me by my poor mother — 
were perfectly sufficient at that time for all the re- 
quirements of a bachelor’s existence, which then was 
much less costly than at the present day. I lived in 
the rue du Bac. My apartments were furnished 
with taste, almost luxury ; the windows opened on a 
very beautiful garden. A carriage that I hired for 
the six winter months came for me every evening ; 
and more than once at a late hour, on going home, 
some old nobleman, who had come either in a hack 
or on foot, did me the honor to accept a seat in my 
conveyance. My train of life put me thus on a 
footing of perfect equality with all the gay, titled 
youth whom I met in the world. 

One circumstance more serious still contributed to 
thicken, during a certain time, the veil of my illu- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


79 


sions. The Count de Brugal, always so kindly dis- 
posed towards me, had introduced me to the chief 
editors of two royalist papers where he exercised a 
great influence. In these I published several 
articles which were noticed, and which brought me, 
in the salons I frequented, all sorts of compliments 
and eager flatteries. Accepted a$ a defender, ap- 
plauded as a writer by the most punctilious of their 
class, living a life the most elegant, I confess that it 
was almost impossible for me then to take a correct 
view of my situation among them, as well as I 
have been able to do since. 

My winter thus passed away, divided between my 
successes in the drawing-room and as a journalist. 
Even with the opposition papers, I had rapidly 
made for myself a reputation for moderation and 
loyalty which had gained me their good feeling, and 
several times the ministerial or republican papers, 
in replying to my articles, had expressed a regret 
that their author, to whom such a beautiful future 
seemed reserved if he had entered into the current 
of new ideas, should remain attached, without profit, 
to a lost cause. These advances, repulsed by me, 
only served to augment my credit in the seducing 
society where I was adopted, and I confess I felt 


80 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARTS. 


the most delicate fibres of my vanity flattered by 
the marks of esteem which were lavished upon me, 
while at the same time I enjoyed iu the depths of my 
soul that delight, still more manly and more noble, 
which is at once the strength and recompense of 
every man who combats for his faith. And, indeed, 
had not my royalism at that moment of my life, 
stirred as it was by the excitement of newspaper 
controversy, by my success as a writer, and by my 
enjoyment of self-love, all the sincerity, all the ar- 
dor, all the fanaticism of the most blinded faith ? 


TWENTY TEAKS IN PARIS. 


81 


in. 

At the first approach of summer, the elegant 
society of Paris dispersed, to seek the cool retreat 
of their chateaux. The Count de Brugal no longer 
possessed his properties in the South. For some 
time back the family country-seat, the old turrets 
of which I had so often admired in my childhood, 
had fallen into the hands of a shawl merchant, who 
had made a fortune in the business. The count, 
therefore, passed the summer season in a modest 
villa which he had recently purchased in the environs 
of Paris. Before going, he made me promise to 
come and spend a few days with him in his family. 

At these words the hunter of the Camargue paused 
as if he hesitated to pursue his narrative. 

“ Excuse my weakness,” he remarked, with a pain- 
f ul smile. “ I touch here on a grievous point in my 
life.” . . . 

Following the example of the monk, I lighted 
my pipe, took a sip from my glass, and, judging by 

his emotion that I was now to hear the secret of his 
4 * 


82 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


life, I arranged myself, without making any observa- 
tions, to listen to the sequel of his history. 

“ According to my promise,” said he, “ I went at 
the end of a month to make my visit to the count. 
My arrival was looked upon as a fete in the house, 
as my presence there was likely to reanimate a 
little the conversations and vary the monotony. La 
Morliere — this was the name of the place — was one 
of those graceful country houses of which you see 
so many in the neighborhood of Paris — a kind of 
miniature chateau, with the little green lawn in 
front, the customary marble fountain, a park of a 
couple of acres fenced in by walls, and the main 
avenue closed off by a gate of painted wood or iron. 
It was situated near the Maison Lafitte half way up 
the hill, which offers a beautiful view of the tortu- 
ous windings of the Seine, and is crowned by the 
noble forest of Saint-Germain. The windows 
opened upon the immense plain, at the extremity of 
which surges in the horizon, through an aureole of 
light mists, Paris with its domes and monuments. 
The house was charming, and its equal proximity to 
river and forest invited us each day to new excur- 
sions as pleasant as they were picturesque. Some- 
times we }iked ; the count and I, while conversing 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


83 


on tlie doings of the day, to wander through the 
long and silent avenues of the forest ; sometimes we 
went in his little boat on some distant expedition to 
the banks of the Pecq or Croissy. Often Mademoi- 
selle de Brugal expressed a desire to accompany us, 
and her father took pleasure in granting her this 
innocent recreation. Two or three times in the 
course of the previous winter I had had the honor 
of dancing with her, without attaching much impor- 
tance to this ordinary favor. During these first ex- 
cursions I likewise paid her only the respectful 
deference due from any well-bred man to a young 
lady. Very soon, however, I was struck by some 
little peculiarities in her manner, which probably 
would not have been noticed by any one but myself. 
It seemed to me she found a rather unusual pleas- 
ure in following us in our rambles. In the evening 
at the hour for tea, she came to take her seat by my 
side at the large round table in the drawing-room. 
With a charming simplicity she filled and even 
served me my cup, knowing exactly the size and 
number of pieces of sugar I was accustomed to take, 
and pouring the precise quantity of drops of milk or 
rum with which I liked to color my tea. Then, 
when the waiter was removed, she never failed to 


84 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


seat herself with her embroidery at the other ex- 
tremity of the room. This persistent childishness 
at first mystified me, when one evening, by chance, 
on suddenly raising my eyes to a mirror placed in 
front of me, I encountered those of Iolande fixed on 
mine. Surprised and slightly blushing, she quickly 
bent her pretty head over her work. So then it was 
in order to observe me better, without being ob- 
served herself, that she had chosen, every evening, 
this distant place. But if I no longer had any doubt 
as to the object of her conduct, I endeavored in vain 
to guess what could be the motive of it. I was no 
more presumptuous then ' than I am now, and as 
slightly as you know me, sir, you can already judge 
for yourself if conceit is one of the weaknesses of 
the monk of Franquevaux. At last, however, I 
was obliged to yield to evidence.” 

One day as we were assembled in the garden 
with some friends, I playfully presented a rose to a 
lady, who hardly noticed my floral gallantry and 
fastened, without thinking, the flower in her belt. 
Iolande was standing a few steps off and appeared 
not to notice it. After a few moments she ap- 
proached with the most natural air, and began con- 


TWENTY TEAKS IN PARIS. 


85 


versing with ns. All at once, without affectation, 
while talking and laughing : 

“ What a pretty rose you have there ! 55 she re- 
marked ; and with an adorably-played thoughtless- 
ness she took the flower which I had just offered, 
trifled with it for a moment, and Anally placed it in 
her corsage. 

“ How is that, my child , 55 said her mother reprov- 
ingly ; “ if you wish a rose, are there not plenty in 
the garden, and would you rob Madame of a flower 
that has been given her % 55 

“ Given , 55 replied the young girl; “oh! I beg 
your pardon, Madame, I was not aware . 55 . . . 

And hastily throwing the flower away, she left 
with a little pouting air and with an affected 
gayety, which was betrayed, however, by two tears 
which I saw glisten in her eyes. During this rapid 
scene her glance met mine, and under its sudden 
flash I felt myself tremble, as under the shock of an 
electric spark. 

“ Sir , 55 said my host, interrupting himself anew, 
“this occurred thirty years ago. Since that day, 
this young girl, after becoming a lady, has caused 
me to drink deeply from the cup of bitterness. In 
order to dissipate my grief I have sought, by turns, 


86 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS, 


forgetfulness in pleasure and in work. I have tried 
everything. My heart is hardened like a badly- 
healed wound. This remembrance of myself at 
twenty years has not lost anything of its freshness. 
The senses may become numb ; but when all is dead 
within us, the heart alone can yet live.” 

The monk ceased speaking. With his forehead 
bent over his chest, and his eyes fixed on the half- 
extinct fire, he remained for a moment motionless and 
thoughtful. I respected his silence. Soon, though, 
shaking his head, as if to chase away thoughts that 
overpowered him, he mastered his grief. His face 
resumed its habitual expression of careless irony, and 
without it being possible to detect on his countenance 
the slightest trace of the emotion with which for a 
moment he had been overcome, he continued tran- 
quilly his narrative. 

The flash of that eye shone forth like lightning in 
a storm. Was not the storm already raging in my 
heart ? At twenty years, to believe one’s self loved, 
is to love. 

From that moment forward our relations com- 
pletely changed character. Under her look, I, who 
until then had been so calm before her, became timid 
and paralyzed. My emotion betrayed itself when 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


87 


addressing her, and the sound of her voice threw me 
into an indescribable confusion. In the evening, if 
she came at the customary hour to take her place at 
my side, the rustling of her dress alone made me 
tremble to the innermost recesses of my soul. Our 
eyes fell when they met. Our hands, which were so 
often pressed in friendship, avoided each other, as if 
they feared their mutual clasp. I felt her coming 
when the distance was too great for my ear to detect 
the sound of her step. What shall I say ? There is 
but one word for it .... I loved her ! 

A few days passed thus, in the delicious uncer- 
tainty of incipient love. In- the morning, while in 
the garden, I could see her at the window of her 
room, and I greeted her with an eager awkwardness 
which made her smile. During the long walks we 
took in the presence of her father, we scarcely ad- 
dressed each other any direct word ; but how well 
our eyes knew what to say, if our lips did not ! With 
her white parasol in her hand, she ran before us, 
gracefully revealing in her light course the harmo- 
nious outline of her figure. In my soul I never left 
her. Although I might have avoided all allusion to 
the sentiment she inspired me with, it seemed to me 
I could no more doubt her love than she could 


88 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS, 


have doubted mine. Need I say to you that my af- 
fection for the count had transformed itself into a 
truly filial devotion, and that I loved the father of 
Iolande as my own ? Their little home seemed to 
my eyes a hundred times more magnificent than the 
old chateau of Brugal, which I had so much ad- 
mired in former days, perched on its hill, and gilded 
by three centuries of southern sun ; but the other 
was much dearer; it was as dear to me as the home 
of my birth. Was I not in reality just born again, 
into the true life — that of love ? Alas ! what is any 
other ? 


’TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


89 


rv\ 

The time had come for me to tear myself away 
from this dream, and to leave La Morliere, but not 
without having first promised my friends to return 
during the hunting season. Paris had henceforth lost 
for me its prestige. When I came back, I found 
its streets, boulevards, and theatres, sad, solitary, 
gloomy. It seemed to me that from the realm of 
the sun I had been suddenly precipitated into dark- 
ness. I sought in vain some distraction in study, 
but the image of my dear Iolande would constantly 
come and place itself between my books and me. 
She would appear with her smile, somewhat proud, 
and yet so sweet, with her profound look, her caress- 
ing voice ; — attractive without coquetry, under the 
thick bands of her black hair, and her face tinted 
with the warm and delicate reflex of a generous 
blood. The only happy moments of my exile were 
those in which I had occasion to see the count, who 
came sometimes to breathe the air of Paris, and to 
whom I clung from the moment I ascertained his 


00 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


arrival, as a drowning man would do to the one who 
rescues him. 

The few friends I had made for myself in the 
world or among my brother journalists, offered to 
share with me their pleasures. You know the amuse- 
ments which Paris offers in the summer. Boating, 
country balls in the environs, public gardens peopled 
with trees yellowed by gas, and women yellowed by 
vice ; this is the whole programme. 

Of all the pretty women, whom I chanced to see, 
there was but one who in any way attracted my 
notice. Her mother, I was told, was an old ballet- 
dancer, who had abandoned art for industry and 
opened a small shop for the sale of perfumery, in the 
Bue Lafitte. But if the wily dancer had renounced 
the pomps of Satan, the old glove woman still clung 
to his works. Madame Dumont, who had heard that 
I was a rich young man, received me with all sorts 
of grimaces, which she intended for smiles. I did 
not feel much flattered at the idea of being the ob- 
ject of her miserable old coquetries, and was in a 
measure relieved when my comrades suggested that 
it was not on her own account she was so, amiable 
and tender, but that it was all in behalf of her 
daughter. It is needless for me to say, that these 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


91 


manoeuvrings were only wasted upon my bruised 
heart ; still I could not help feeling a secret pity 
for the poor child, who, situated as she was, was 
inevitably doomed beforehand to ruin and misery. 
This involuntary sentiment of sympathy will be nat- 
urally explained to you when I say that Cora — such 
was her name — was the living portrait of Iolande. 
The same form, the same look, the same features ; 
one would have said twin sisters; and so much 
they were alike that more than once I asked myself 
if the Count de Brugal, at the time of his splendor 
and success, had not left, without being aware of it, 
in the side scenes of the opera, this living trace of 
his brilliant passage. The apparent interest with 
which this strange resemblance inspired me deceived 
the old mother, who, persuaded that I was cap- 
tivated with her daughter, redoubled her attentions 
toward me. The latter from her side seemed not 
to view me with a too cruel eye. Brought up 
under traditions of an unavoidable corruption, so 
well described by Merimee in Arsine Guillot, she 
was resigned beforehand to accept the first protec- 
tor whom chance or sentiment might throw in 
her way. As for me, far from being captivated with 
the poor girl, it was another I had in my mind when 


02 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


my eyes looked upon her, and if I dwell upon the 
circumstance, it is because this same girl subse- 
quently rendered me a service which, as you will 
hereafter see, I could ask of her without infring- 
ing on my principles. 

At the end of two months, which were for me 
two centuries, some time in September, I returned to 
La Morliere. My host, having been advised of my 
arrival, awaited me on the piazza to bid me welcome. 
Iolande was not there ; but on raising my eyes, I 
saw the curtains of her room half open and close 
again suddenly. She was watching, and had con- 
cealed herself in order to see me when I arrived. 
When she appeared in the drawing-room at the din- 
ner hour, she accosted me with an eager smile, like 
a friend whom we meet again after a long absence, 
and in the evening she resumed her old place by my 
side. My two months of exile were already effaced 
from my memory and from my life — they had not 
even existed; for me, the spring, which had just 
passed, yet lasted ! 

My room was the same which I had previously 
occupied. Only, this time, a friendly hand seemed 
to have presided over its arrangement. Some pieces 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


93 


of furniture had been replaced by others more ele- 
gant and more useful. 

A thousand delicate attentions betrayed the pres- 
ence and the taste of a woman. On a small table 
were two magnificent bouquets in crystal vases. 
Other flowers, of a fresh and exquisite perfume, 
were placed on the mantel. Every day during my 
absence these flowers were renewed, and I admired 
the vigilant affection which I had inspired without 
intending it in the old servant who was especially 
charged with the care of my room. 

Several days passed without being marked by any 
new incident. My hosts showed themselves more 
and more affectionate towards me, while I myself 
felt more and more confused in their presence. 
As to their daughter, by turns smiling or thoughtful, 
she astonished me by the sudden changes in her 
manner. At times her sad eyes would fix themselves 
on me with an indefinable expression of impatience 
and melancholy. To continue much longer between 
us this state of constraint was to perpetuate an un- 
certainty which would end by degenerating into a 
veritable suffering. Every moment the decisive 
word would mount to my lips ; but, restrained by 
timidity, by the respect, by the violence even of my 


94 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


love, I dared not. I wanted to confide my secret to 
Monsieur de Brugal, who seemed to encourage me 
to do so by his indefatigable kindness, but the 
courage always failed me. 

One day an accident happened to my gun which 
brought me back from the hunt an hour before the 
accustomed time. On entering my room, after 
closing the door, which, to my great surprise, I 
found half open, I heard a slight noise in the 
apartment. The curtains were lowered, and my 
eyes, coming all of a sudden from the brightest 
daylight to this semi-obscurity, were unable to 
distinguish anything. After a few moments, be- 
coming accustomed to the darkness, I perceived 
Mademoiselle de Brugal standing before the man- 
telpiece, blushing, and holding in her hand two 
large bouquets. So, then, it was she — why could 
my heart not have divined it? — it was she who 
replaced each morning the flowers of the previous 
day ; it was to her I was indebted for those amia- 
ble attentions which had so much charmed me. 
Speechless and confused on seeing me, she endeavored 
to speak, but her voice died upon her lips. I was 
as much affected as she, and could not find a word 
to say. Finally with a supreme effort over myself, 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


95 


I approached and extended to her my hand. Trem- 
blingly she gave me hers, and we remained thus a 
moment, our eyes lowered, without daring to speak 
or to look each other in the face. Overcome and 
utterly forgetting myself, I had passed gently, with- 
out thinking, my other arm around her waist, and 
drawing her toward me, I pressed her to my 
heart. Pale and motionless, she allowed herself 
to remain in my arms ; without voice, without 
strength, she leaned on me with all the charming 
weight of her lovely form. I heard under her light 
muslin waist the palpitations of her heart, which 
beat against my own with hurried throbs. Silence 
and obscurity enveloped us ; we were no longer of 
this world. 

“ Oh ! how I love you,” I breathed, with a stifled 
voice, to which, like a dying echo, her own responded. 

And her mouth in exchanging this avowal met 
my lips. 

Suddenly snatched from this dream, however, by 
the very intensity of my emotion, and coming back 
to a sense of reality, I remembered the Count de 
Brugal’s kindness to me, his affectionate hospitality 
and confidence. Falling at the feet of Iolande: 

“My soul is yours,” I said in a firm voice; “and 


on 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


with your family rests henceforth the happiness or 
despair of my life.” 

“ You will be my husband,” she replied with 
firmness ; “ no other shall ever obtain my hand ; I 
swear it.” 

After a last embrace, calm this time, chaste, ex- 
changed with assurance, she went away, her head 
erect, her mouth smiling, and I followed her with 
my eyes — light-hearted, as after some peril skil- 
fully avoided, and with an easy conscience, as after 
a good action well accomplished. 

From that evening even a casual observer might 
have read in our faces the change which had come 
over our hearts. Our eyes no longer feared to meet, 
nor had we any longer to resort to glances caught 
stealthily in order to read each other’s thoughts. 

Our habitual uneasiness had given place to an 
open and sweet security, which was revealed in our 
language and attitude ; every smile was like a new 
promise ; every look like a new vow ; and when at 
the hour for tea we found ourselves seated side by 
side, our hands avoided each other’s no more, but, 
on the contrary, sought the contact, and remained 
clasped for a moment with a mute and tender 
pressure. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


97 


This sweet dream was prolonged for several days, 
and still the certainty of this reciprocity, so long 
waited for, did not embolden me to speak to Mon- 
sieur de Brugal of my love for his daughter and of 
our exchanged vows. Meanwhile it seemed to me 
impossible for him not to divine the truth, so little 
we sought to make a mystery of it. On several 
occasions it even appeared to me that the countess 
and himself, far from placing obstacles in the way 
of our love, secretly encouraged it. Was it to be 
presumed besides that this family, so proud, so 
worthy of respect, so scrupulous about everything 
which touched the honor of their children, would 
have kept me so long in their midst, thus exposing 
us, Iolande and me, to the natural consequence of a 
growing sympathy, if, beforehand, they had not de- 
cided to repair the injury occasioned by such an im- 
prudent trust and allow us to marry ? I, therefore, 
summoned up all my courage to venture, as bravely 
as possible, on this important mission, when an 
unforeseen event occurred which upset, or at least 
adjourned, my project. 


5 


98 


TWENTY YEANS IN PARIS. 


VI. 

You are of course aware that after the arrest of 
the Duchess of Berri a virulent controversy sprang 
up between the revolutionary papers and those of 
the royalist party. We greedily devoured at La 
Morliere all the papers of the day. Monsieur de 
Brugal was stupefied at this exhibition of passionate 
hatred; I was exasperated on my side at these 
evidences of violence, unworthy of the French 
character, and it is needless for me to say that 
Mademoiselle de Brugal shared my indignation. 

“The cowards!” she muttered one day, before 
me, at the reading of an article in which the gross- 
est outrages were lavished upon the unfortunate 
princess, heroic victim of maternal devotion. 
“ They have found the means of dishonoring them- 
selves twice in one stroke, by insulting at the same 
time a subjugated foe and a woman.” 

The next day I left for Paris. Instantly on my 
arrival I hastened to the office of the Quotidienne, 
there to inscribe myself as ready to answer the well- 
known collective challenge that certain papers had 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


99 


just addressed to the young men of the royalist 
party. Twenty-four hours after, I was informed 
that my adversary was found, and, accompanied by 
two seconds, I repaired to the appointed place. 

I the^e encountered an officer on half-pay who 
had been decorated during the empire — one of those 
warriors with cropped hair and cropped mustache, 
both as bristling as their patriotism, who from 1815 
to 1851 have noisily proclaimed their republicanism 
or liberalism, under pretext that they had served 
under the emperor, and who, even now, are not well 
persuaded that the empire is by no means synony- 
mous with republic and liberty. 

After a courteous salute, as customary in duels 
where the honor of the two champions is not inter- 
ested, and where they are not excited by personal 
hatred, our seconds crossed our swords, and the com- 
bat commenced. 

After the third pass I fell, wounded by a fierce 
thrust within two inches of my heart. 

At the sight of this, my adversary, who was not 
expecting so terrible a result, threw his sword away 
from him in anger, and ran towards me, pale and 
desperate. Swearing like a heathen, in a moment 
when I had need perhaps of a more Christian com 


100 


TWENTY YEARS TN PARIS. 


solation, he expressed his remorse that he, an old 
soldier, should have exposed himself to kill a child. 
The vivacity with which he came towards me, a large 
tear that I saw roll down his face, as well as the 
emotion which caused his voice to tremble, betrayed 
a sorrow so sincere, that in spite of my weakness, I 
extended my hand to him. When the surgeon, 
after first probing the wound, pronounced my life 
in no danger, my seconds decided, under his guid- 
ance and with the greatest precaution, to carry me 
back to my residence, where I found Captain Edouard 
Auger — this was the name of my disconsolate op- 
ponent — who, hastily preceding us, had already 
placed at my bedside a sister of charity. Furious 
against himself, he paced up and down the room 
with long strides, at the risk of communicating to 
me his feverish agitation, scolding loudly, buttoning 
and unbuttoning his coat with a nervous hand, in 
short, swearing, with a military energy, at the fool- 
ish exaltation of an age, in which two men of honor, 
two compatriots worthy of mutual esteem, and who 
had never done each other any harm, could fight 
thus in cold blood, under an artificial excitement in- 
duced by the passions of the moment. 

As for myself ? weak, oppressed, and half dying, I 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


101 


gathered up what strength remained to me, and im 
plored my seconds to inform my friend and pro- 
tector, the Count de BrugaL A moment after I lost 
consciousness, became delirious, and remained so 
for several days. When I recovered my mind the 
count was at my bedside. He insisted upon my be- 
ing removed to the country, where the pure and 
vivifying air w T ould, according to his views, hasten 
my cure. I consented to it with pleasure, and 
my convalescence from that moment forward made 
rapid progress; but, alas! if my wound became 
better, I felt from day to day my heart grow more 
sick. 

You can well understand that this duel and its 
consequences had for result to exalt the love of 
Iolande. And yet it was that duel which, from a 
sense of delicacy easy to be understood, prevented 
my lips from uttering the long-intended avowal. 
I disliked to appear to speculate upon the increased 
sympathy which my perilous devotion to the cause 
we both served must have inspired in my pro- 
tector. Meanwhile the more I reflected, the more a 
refusal of the count seemed impossible to me. He 
had spoken so many times of his liberalism ; he had 
so often expressed the desire to have the occasion 


102 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


given him to openly manifest it, that I never for a 
moment doubted but that, in his eyes, nobleness of 
heart was perfectly the equal of nobleness of blood. 
The disinterestedness, worthy of another age, with 
which my father had offered to him his fortune, 
when he thought he was ruined, was it not, 
moreover, the best recommendation for my love ? 
And then, would not the slender means of Monsieur 
de Brugal prevent him from giving a suitable mar- 
riage portion to his daughter? Of the ten thousand 
francs of income that he possessed, all the dispose 
able part must, according to the custom of aristo- 
cratic families, go to the oldest son who was to in- 
herit his title. Under these oircumstances, the count 
could hardly hope for a brilliant marriage for 
Iolande, in a society above all where ease, love of 
pleasure and luxury, and the importance of perpet- 
uating the brilliancy of the race, imposes upon most 
young people the sad obligation of making all ques- 
tions of marriage subordinate to the question of 
money. My present fortune and that which must 
one day come to me, presented, on the contrary, 
quite a respectable amount. In short, the love of 
Iolande, without speaking of the congeniality of our 
tastes, sentiments, and opinions, which so closely at- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


103 


tached me to her family, was a reason which, joined 
to the others, seemed to me conclusive. 

In spite of all these reasons for hope, I bent un- 
der the weight of I know not what vague inquie- 
tude, and my arguments were unable to triumph 
over my apprehensions. I finally decided that the 
courage which I should require for a verbal demand 
would always fail me. I, therefore, resolved to re- 
turn to Paris, in the hope that my pen would prove 
more valiant than my tongue; and from there 
I addressed to Monsieur de Brugal the following 
letter, written with a trembling hand, and which I 
ran to throw in the post with all the excited pre- 
cipitation of a mischievous child who is frightened 
at his own audacity. 

“Monsieur le Comte: A man of honor may only cross the 
threshold of a house like yours, with a free conscience and without 
after thought. My delicacy forbids that I should any longer ac- 
cept, without first informing you of my sentiments, a hospitality 
which is dear to me, but where I bring no longer a free heart, 
nor a mind, perhaps, entirely clear. I love your daughter, sir. I 
beg of you to excuse the avowal which I venture to make, but 
your kindness and affection alone have inspired me with the 
courage. Should this displease you, I am sure you will at least 
appreciate the sentiment which has called it forth. Believe, sir, 
etc., etc.” .... 


The following day I received the reply : 


104 


TWENTY YEANS IN NANIS. 


‘ ‘ Sir,” said tlie countess, who had taken upon herself to answer 
in the name of her husband, “parents are always flattered with 
sentiments such as those you express for our dear Iolande ; but 
we should eternally regret having given birth to them by any 
imprudence, if we were not well convinced that nothing on our 
part could have encouraged them. We have received you 
with cordiality, not thinking that you would see in our attentions 
anything further than the desire to oblige, as much as was in 
our power, the son of one of our best friends. 

“ Since long we have contemplated for Iolande a project that 
her age alone prevents us from realizing. 

“ Always count on our sincere and unalterable friendship. 
Meanwhile the confidence with which you have intrusted us, 
and which we were so far from expecting, imposes upon us the 
duty of a more circumspect attitude. We will continue, I hope, to 
see you in Paris as in the past, for a sudden rupture would give 
place to suppositions; but it would be difficult for us — and we 
deeply regret it, as you well know how highly we prize our 
friendly relations — it would be difficult for us to receive you in 
the country on the same footing as before. Yourself, in the 
present condition of your heart, could you come back here with 
pleasure? Believe, etc.” 

I remained stupefied. So then all was overl 
That love which had come upon me, so to 
speak, in spite of myself, was going to prove the tor- 
ment of my life. And yet, what could be the mo- 
tive for such a decided refusal ? My fortune ? It 
was ten times greater than that of Iolande. My 
character? Twenty times over the count and his 
wife had expressed the sympathy with which it in- 
spired them. My conduct? The most rigorous 


TWENTY YE AES IN PAEIS. 


105 


critic could not have found the least peccadillo to 
take hold of. Was it then my name? .... 

Thus I was brutally rejected by the Count de 
Brugal ; I, the son of a man who in his friendship 
for him had sacrificed his very fortune; I, who in 
my devotion to him had espoused his ideas to the 
extent of braving death for them, I was rejected 
for this only reason that my blood did not seem to 
him as noble as his own. And that cruel termination 
of non-acceptance was dealt out to me by a man 
who draped himself every moment in his liberalism. 
What, then, was this class of people whose political 
interests I had defended at the price of my blood 
and my future, and whose social prejudices held 
out against the lesson of three revolutions ? 

“ Is it, then, true,” I asked myself, swallowing 
my tears, “ that certain tenacious vanities divide hu- 
manity in two distinct races, as impossible to com- 
mingle in society as the inhabitants of air and water 
in nature ?”.... 

My imagination, spurred on by my feelings, be- 
came wild. To my mind that refusal was an insult 
not only to myself, but to all those who, like me, 
equal or superior to the Count de Brugal and his 
peers by education or fortune, had only the misfor- 


106 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


tune not to bear a name preceded, like his, by a no* 
biliary particle or a mercenary title. The reception 
given me by that family aggravated still more the 
insult. To allow me to live during three entire 
months, tete-^-tete as it were, with a young girl 
whose hand they had resolved in advance to refuse 
me, was it not giving me to understand that the 
same blood did not flow through our veins, and that 
between a man of my species and a young girl of 
the race of Iolande there was no reciprocal affection 
to guard against, nor any more affinity to be feared 
than between two beings belonging to classes the 
most diverse in creation ? 

True love has a vivacious hope ; it is not easily 
repulsed, and willingly repays itself with illusions 
when reality escapes from its grasp. Mine in its 
wreck clung to every straw, and in the strength 
of my despair I inwardly nursed, without daring to 
avow it to myself, a last hope. Had Mademoiselle 
de Brugal been consulted, and had they disposed of 
her future, with her will, or without her consent ? 
These old parents, when they are once stung by am- 
bition, by avarice, by that venomous tarantula, vanity, 
they are terrible ! My love for Iolande was too loyal 
to doubt hers or her devotion. It was not possible, 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


107 


after vows such as she had made, that she would 
ever consent to sanction this refusal. What was my 
name to her, if she was only sure of my heart? 
What would she care for the sneers of the world 
and the threats of her family ? Thank God ! my 
fortune was sufficient for us both. . . . And my 
heart galloped, galloped, while my head followed 
suit, so that the next day, when the servant opened 
my door and announced the Count de Brugal, I ran 
joyfully to meet him, fully persuaded that he came 
to disavow the letter of the previous day. 


108 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


vn. 

The count entered my room in a gay and uncon- 
cerned manner, and holding out his hand to me with 
a charming cordiality, and with as much ease as 
if nothing of any importance had passed between 
us : 

“ My dear Maurice,” he said, cheerfully, installing 
himself without ceremony in an easy-chair, “ this 
visit, after the letter you have received, must aston- 
ish you. The truth is, if it had been any one else, 
we would have stopped there, but with such a 
friendship as we feel for you, we could not be satis- 
fied with the commonplace form of a simple letter.” 

I breathed. Were my presentiments then to be 
realized ? 

“Well, my friend,” continued the count, with the 
same amiable familiarity, “what curious fancy has 
all of a sudden taken possession of you, and who in 
the name of goodness would have thought that you, 
so sensible, so judicious, could one day have thrown 
us into such a cruel embarrassment. For, in short, 
make yourself a judge of the situation ; your charac- 


TWENTY YEARS IN RARIS. 


109 


ter is perfect, your merit incontestable, you are sure 
of a brilliant future.” . . . 

“ What is he coming at ? ” I thought to myself. 

“We profess the same principles, we share the 
same sentiments, your disinterested devotion to the 
good cause is the object of our admiration. You 
have my entire esteem, .... but you cannot have 
my daughter.” 

At this conclusion, which I so little expected from 
what had preceded, I remained thunderstruck. 

“ God knows,” continued Monsieur de Brugal, “ if 
I share the prejudices of my class. My friends call 
me a Jacobin. Titles, coats of arms, ah ! well, yes, 
I don’t care a straw for all these outward nothings. 
But let there come an occasion to prove my liberal- 
ism, and then they will see.” . . . 

“You have told me that before,” I stammered 
with emotion. “ That is why I hoped.” 

“You hoped . . . to enter into my family? What 
in the world is there in common, I beg of you, be- 
tween my liberalism and my family? Liberalism, my 
young friend, is a sentiment exclusively political and 
patriotic, and which has nothing to do whatever with 
little personal or domestic interests. You know the 
anecdote of Mirabeau, who, as a true marquis of the 


110 TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 

good olden time, gave a smart kick to his valet de 
chambre who one day omitted to call him by his title. 
Although he was a democrat when in the national as- 
sembly, at home he remained the nobleman. Where 
is the prince or the high-titled personage, expressing 
republican sentiments, whom you have ever seen 
put into practice, in his family or in his palace, his 
theories of equality. The truth is that a nobleman, 
even should he set forth the most democratic opin- 
ions, will always remain at heart a nobleman. He is 
chained by a thousand ties which he cannot break 
without suffering in his pride or in his vanity, and, 
above all, not without peril for the happiness of his 
children. Fancy our Iolande, whose trousseau is 
marked with my coat of arms, who has eaten all her 
life from silver engraved with my coat of arms, who 
in the time of my splendor rode in my carriage 
which bore my coat of arms, now obliged to mark 
her linen with the prosaic initials ‘ M. Y. ’ ! Think of 
her in the midst of the old friends of her childhood, 
all decorated with high-sounding titles, all duchesses, 
princesses, countesses, and obliged to repeat two or 
three times her name to their astonished valets, and 
hear them announce in a bewildered voice, ‘ Madame 
Vernier’ 1” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


Ill 


“ If she loves me, if I render her happy, of what 
consequence % ” 

“ Yes, that is the old song. I have heard that tune 
before. Well, admitting that you are loved. Be it 
so : your love will take the place of everything ; you 
will make a world for yourselves ; you will not no- 
tice the imperceptible smiles with which you will be 
received in society, or rather you will keep away 
from that society which is so disdainful and so dis- 
dained by you. I will admit even, if you please, 
that you could be loved a longtime. My esteem for 
you cannot go, however, my dear friend, to admitting 
that you will be loved forever. A woman does not 
love her husband all her life ; that is not customary, 
my goodness ! at least not with us. What then ? 
Thrown back upon yourself, you will suffer a thou- 
sand stings with which the epigrams of the salons will 
cause your very epiderme to bleed ; you will suffer 
from that condition of inferiority to which your wife 
will have resigned herself on your account, in the very 
society where she was destined to occupy the most 
exalted position ; in short, you will suffer from all 
those intangible affronts which you will be compelled 
to submit to, without being able to avenge yourself, 
any better than a poet or a public man can do when 


112 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


assailed by the scurrilous articles of a penny news- 
paper.” 

“ So, then,” I exclaimed, “ yon will sacrifice, you 
who pretend to be so liberal, to prejudices of which 
you acknowledge yourself the injustice, the happi- 
ness of a friend, the happiness of a child ! ” 

“ My dear Maurice,” vivaciously replied the count, 
who understood by my emotion that the moment 
had come to speak seriously, “ be assured that we are 
not those^barbarous parents, such as you read of in 
novels, ready to sacrifice, as you say, the happiness of 
their children to some frivolous motives of vanity. 
Believe also that we feel for you a sincere friend- 
ship. If, then, your mutual attachment is as strong 
as you seem to think it is, if it triumphs over the re- 
flections which I have urged my daughter to make, 
and which I pray you to make in your turn, well 
then, we will have fulfilled our duty to the end, and 
shall feel obliged to conform to your wishes.” 

“ What ! ” I exclaimed with anxiety, “ she knows, 
then?” 

“ She knows all. Was it not our first duty to 
show her your letter? We would think ourselves 
unworthy the name of honest people, if we had at- 
tempted to deceive her by preventing her from see 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


113 


ing you without first explaining our motives for 
doing so. Besides, prudence even obliged us to be 
loyal to you both. Sooner or later, on meeting, an 
explanation between you might have brought about 
most deplorable consequences. I have not left her, 
therefore, in any way ignorant of your sentiments. 
Only, all the obstacles which seemed to militate 
against your marriage have been scrupulously 
analyzed by us in her presence, and we have en- 
deavored to convince her, though with some diffi- 
culty, I admit, of the impossibility of such a union ; 
nor is this all, and I will make to you no secret of 
my projects, for I intend to act toward you as 
frankly as toward her. We shall seek to divert her 
by all the means that lie in our power. We shall 
present her in society, and that the most brilliant, 
the most titled, in order to induce her to seek there, 
without finding it of course, the place which she 
would occupy as simple Madame Vernier. If that 
means proves insufficient, then we will have recourse 
to the great remedy, travelling and absence. Be 
good enough from your side to look within your- 
self; calmly consider the matter, look well at so- 
ciety, study its forms and its laws, and, in a year 
from now I promise you to submit to the wishes of 


114 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


my daughter and yonr own. I speak to you, you 
observe, in a manner as one man should speak to 
another whom he esteems and loves. I now prove 
to you my loyalty ; it is needless to say that I trusl 
to yours. But, in order to make the test decisive, it 
must be complete and sincere.” 

I promised the count that he would be satisfied 
with my discretion and reserve, and that he should 
never feel annoyed by meeting me too often in the 
salons where he might escort his daughter, neither 
by any attempt at a clandestine meeting, or secret 
correspondence. He left. The idea of this trial of 
one year inspired me, however, with as much appre- 
hension as grief. I was always sure of my love ; but, 
alas ! I already began to feel less sure of Iolande’s. 

Whatever might happen, and even though her 
heart should remain true to me, I could not disguise 
the fact that my marriage with her would only 
be a happy exception to the rule, without invali- 
dating the general opinion, which is opposed to 
marriages of this nature. It seemed to me at that 
instant a thick veil had fallen from my eyes. 
Thrown all of a sudden from the sphere of political 
abstractions, in which until then my royalism had 
been hovering, down into the world of realities, I 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


115 


commenced to understand that our struggles in life 
arise, not so much from intangible principles as 
from men whose interests or passions may be op- 
posed or subservient to ours, and that politics, which 
are based solely upon abstractions, are only fit for 
dreamers and Utopians. Under the impression of 
my own sufferings, the great problem of the antag- 
onism of the different classes of society stood more 
than ever fatally before my mind, and the social ques- 
tion seemed to me of far greater importance to hu- 
manity than the political one. These considerations, 
which were suggested by my position toward the 
Count de Brugal, led me to reflect upon the causes 
of all our past revolutions, and to see in the last one, 
which until then I had so cordially detested, only 
the legitimate outbreak of the indignation of the 
offended masses. 

“ Oh ! oh ! ” I exclaimed, with a hearty laugh, “ I 
did not expect to see the revolution of July in this 
affair.” 

“ You may laugh, as much as you please,” replied 
the monk gayly. “ Do you believe that I can speak 
of those curious love scenes and those fits of comical 
anger to-day without laughing at them myself ? It 
is necessary, however, since you wish to hear the re- 


116 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


cital of my life, that I narrate to you the successive 
transformations which my ideas have undergone and 
the secret motive of all these transformations. And 
then, shall I avow it to you ? It seems to me that it 
will not be impossible to perceive some vague an- 
alogy between the personal sentiments, which have 
detached me from the royalist party, and the popu- 
lar sentiments which have hastened its fall. Has 
not France, like me, shown herself, at first, sin- 
cerely devoted to the monarchy? Like me, has 
she not gradually left it, from antipathy for the pre- 
j udices of the class of people who for fifteen years 
have set themselves up as the true expression of the 
royalist idea, rather than from an aversion to royalty 
itself ? However that may be, I felt myself every 
day more powerfully drawn away from my party 
into the class to which I really belonged. The in- 
voluntary and rapid change which came over my 
opinions astonished me, and I could no longer think 
of my recent duel without a smile. What had be- 
come of my adversary ? I had not seen him for a 
long time, and I felt that, in the present state of 
my mind, I should, without doubt, experience a 
piquant pleasure in conversing with him. I owed 
him, besides, a visit for the cares he had lavished on 


TWENTY YEAES IN PAEIS. 


117 


me during my convalescence and for the numerous 
calls he had made me during that period, and which 
I had neglected to return, absorbed as 1 was by the 
preoccupations of love. 


318 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


YTE 

Captain Auger lodged in a little room in the rue 
Papillon, furnished like all furnished rooms, that is 
to say, not furnished at all. The walls were covered 
with a red-figured paper, red worsted curtains hung 
from the windows, four easy chairs covered with the 
same material, and a round table, covered with a red 
woollen cloth. I say red, because I suppose it must 
have been, but as to the real shade of it now, it 
would be difficult to tell. His cross and his sword, sus- 
pended on one side of the chimney, formed a match 
to a gilt frame on the other side, exhibiting his mili- 
tary records, and to a lithograph similarly framed 
which represented Bonaparte as first consul. Nu- 
merous engravings ornamented the walls. They 
were: “The Farewell of Fontainebleau, ” “The 
Trumpeter’s Horse,” “ The Apotheosis of the Em- 
peror,” “ The Taking of the Bastille,” “ The Death 
of Poniatowski,” all the dilapidated relics of fifteen 
years of liberalism. His library was an etagere of 
varnished wood, containing a few books. The 
“Speeches of General Foy,” the “Memorial de 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


119 


Sainte-IIelene,” two or three incomplete volumes of 
Pigault-Lebrun, “ The Soldier’s Manual,” “ The 
Songs of Beranger,” such was, as far as I can re- 
member, his literary store. Captain Auger ap- 
peared to live in a condition in which nothing was 
brilliant but the gilt frames of his patriotic en 
gravings. 

He received me with every demonstration of the 
warmest friendship. Nevertheless I saw very soon 
that I had surprised him in one of those moments 
of ill-humor necessarily frequent with a man whoso 
character has been soured by those wants of comfort 
and ease consequent upon a broken career. So I 
prepared to leave, excusing myself in the best man- 
ner possible for my inopportune visit. 

“ No, no,” he said, detaining me, “ do not leave, 
I beg of you. I experience a great pleasure in see- 
ing you and thank you for a visit which proves that 
you do not hold our late encounter against me.” 

“We were fools, both of us,” I replied with 
vivacity. “Was it necessary to cut each other’s 
throat in a dark wood because we did not belong to 
the same party ? ” 

“Your party is a good deal better than mine,” 
grumbled the officer on half-pay, under his thick 


120 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


mustache; “it possesses at least some grandeur, a 
certain chivalrous devotion, some nobility, any- 
how ! . . . . Between soldier and nobleman it is 
easy to understand each other ; they can fight, if 
they have misunderstandings ; but between an offi- 
cer and a green-grocer, pshaw ! No sympathy pos- 
sible ; not even the slightest duel to propose. The 
truth is, we do not speak the same language.” 

“ Would you prefer, then,” I exclaimed, with stu- 
pefaction, to the honest, laborious, economical bour- 
geoisie, “this crowd of proud idlers who people 
drawing-rooms and clubs ? ” 

“ Fine people, your bourgeoisie, . . . militia ! ” 

“ Was it not to insure their triumph that you 
fought in July ? ” 

“ I am an old soldier of the emperor ; I fought 
for liberty, that is all.” 

“ I did not expect, I must confess, to find on your 
lips just now this expression of sympathy for the 
impertinent coterie who pretend to represent royal- 
ism in France.’ 

“ Nor did I expect to find in you so much good 
feeling for this heap of babblers, scribblers, and 
shopkeepers, who pretend to represent liberalism in 
this country.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


121 


“ This bourgeoisie that you calumniate is, however, 
France itself.” 

“ No ; such a state of things cannot last long ” — 
and the voice of the captain became animated and 
his eye sparkled with anger — “ any cotton-dealer or 
pettifogger has more influence to-day than an old 
soldier of Marengo or Austerlitz. They get all the 
honors, all the offices ; they are the power. And I, 
in spite of my twenty campaigns, in spite of my ten 
wounds, after having spent my life in killing off 
Austrians, Spaniards, Russians, I am refused the 
miserable little office of inspector in a charitable in- 
stitution. You must see that justice is violated, that 
even good sense is violated. Charles X., at least, 
only violated the charter ! They despise the grand 
army ; ‘ the old guard is dying,’ why ! it is dead 
already; it expired under the sword of the shop- 
keepers !”.... 

“ Oh, oh ! ” I exclaimed, laughing, “ do not take 
fire so quickly, and after coming well nigh killing 
each other for the glory of the party that we de- 
fended yesterday, let us not draw swords to-day for 
the opposite side.” 

Such was my first lesson of political scepticism. 

6 


122 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


rx. 

The term of probation assigned me by the count 
had nearly expired, and my heart beat with anxiety 
in view of the coming solution. My anger against 
the offensive vanities which were the obstacles to 
my love had not gone so far as to prevail. My heart 
made a clear distinction between its interests and a 
wounded pride, and while I retained in the depths 
of my soul a keen resentment for the refusal of 
the count, and above all for the motives of that 
refusal, I did not feel disposed to sacrifice my happi- 
ness to my rancor. The two passions which for 
the moment had possession of my heart had more- 
over nothing in common. The animosities of 
family or religion, of nation or of caste, will never 
prevent a Borneo from sighing under the balcony 
of a Juliet. 

For a year I had broken off all intimacy with the 
family who were to decide the question of my life. 
Once or twice only I had met the count and his 
wife, and no allusion on their part had given mo 
any reason to hope. To tell the truth, their recep 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


123 


tion, always kind and courteous, had offered also 
nothing absolutely discouraging to my love. As to 
Mademoiselle de Brugal, I had made it a point to 
avoid any place where I thought there might be a 
possibility of meeting her. My offended self-love 
found its revenge in this irreproachable discretion, 
which proved to the Brugals that it is not the name 
alone which makes the true nobleman, but that the 
heart is better than titles, and that one can possess 
all the qualities of the highest peer of the realm 
without proclaiming those qualities or making any 
display of them. 

One evening I was seated at a whist table, in a 
house where they knew my former relations with 
the family of Iolande, without suspecting what had 
lately occurred between us. All of a sudden, be- 
tween two rubbers, my partner flatly addressed me 
the following question : 

“ By the way, can you, my dear Vernier, who are 
one of the best friends of the Count de Brugal, can 
you give us the correct information in regard to the 
great news \ ” 

“ News ? ” 

“ Why ! don’t you know ? The marriage of his 
daughter.” 


124 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


I turned pale ! Meanwhile, by a prodigious effort 
over myself, I managed to suppress my emotion. 

“ With whom,” I asked, in a firm voice. 

“ With the prefect of the Hautes-Alpes, the Mar- 
quis de Mauvezin.” 

I could not reply. 

“ Ilow can that be possible ? ” exclaimed one ; 
“ the marquis is thirty years older than she.” 

“ And then,” added another, “would the count, 
who is so ardent a royalist, give his daughter to a 
man whose recent defection has caused so much 
scandal 1 ” 

“ The fact is nevertheless official,” added a third. 
“ I met Brugal, offered him my congratulations, and 
he accepted them.” 

I finished my game and won without making a 
mistake. My ears tingled as if I had been under 
the great bell of Notre Dame on an Easter Sunday ; 
the blood mounted to my temples, emotion strangled 
me ; I was suffocated. Meanwhile, to avoid suspic- 
ion, I proposed to my adversaries another game, 
which I won also. You know the proverb : “ Happy 
at play.” . . . 

The moment to leave came at last ; I longed to 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


125 


breathe the air. I directed my steps towards the 
Boulevard Italien. It was the evening of a masked 
ball, and the night was magnificent. A joyous ani- 
mation reigned through the finest quarter of Paris. 
You know with what violence the Parisian popula- 
tion, during the first years which followed the revolu- 
tion^ threw themselves into wild pleasures. It was 
the great epoch of those balls of Musard and the 
Varieties, of those revels and cavalcades, which we 
still remember after thirty years, as a far-off echo of 
music, noise, and splendor. When I arrived on the 
boulevard, it was thronged with an animated crowd. 
The carriages, arriving in file, stopped before the en- 
trance, and poured into the hall their flood of dominos. 
In the midst of this excitement, which I did not 
even notice, so great was my own, I walked alone, 
slackening and quickening my steps by turns, under 
the spur of my sufferings, and feverishly absorbed 
in my own reflections. 

I had met the Marquis de Mauvezin several times 
in society. He was a man of about fifty years of 
age, or he might be even more, who, during a 
long life of pleasure, had dissipated a large fortune 
in vulgar follies — gambling, women, and horses. The 
day had finally come when his agent was obliged to 


126 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


inform him that his hundred thousand francs of in- 
come were reduced to only three hundred thousand 
francs of capital. Finding it impossible to remain 
longer a frivolous man, he determined to become a 
serious one. Some friends had proposed to solicit 
for him an office which the government would, with- 
out doubt, feel flattered to bestow upon a personage 
of his rank. Where is the democratic government 
that does not like to come in contact, if ever so 
little, with the nobility ? .... Yery soon, by the 
desire of the king, the Minister of the Interior had 
appointed the Marquis de Mauvezin to the prefec- 
ture of the Ilautes-Alpes, which the latter accepted, 
in the hope of a rapid and brilliant promotion, and 
without deigning to listen to the curses, sarcasms, 
and derogatory remarks which the Count de Brugal, 
more than all others, lavished upon him. 

Once exiled in his new Eden, the marquis felt it 
incumbent upon him to place there an Eve. Deli- 
cate and difficult problem. Tall, withered, with a 
slight stoop, his whole person betrayed a precocious 
old age, consequence of a life of pleasures. His 
hair was nearly gone, and his leaden complexion 
indicated the condition of a blood impoverished by 
violent medical treatment. While losing his for- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


127 


tune, it was easy to see that he had also ruined his 
health. In short, he was the embodiment of Parisian 
dissipation. Meanwhile the fortune which yet re- 
mained to him, the office he then held while waiting 
for a more brilliant one, and lastly, his title, made 
him, under the present conditions of marriage, a 
husband quite presentable. If he could not expect 
to find a wife with a large fortune, he might, at 
least, find a young girl worthy of him by birth, and 
who would be charmed to increase her income five 
or six fold with that of her husband. Mademoiselle 
de Brugal, beautiful, noble, but poor, seemed to be 
in all these particulars the one best suited. Some 
mutual friends interested themselves. They set 
forth to the prefect the advantage of an alliance 
which would serve as a pledge of reconciliation with 
his old friends, and in some respects justify his con- 
duct. On the other side they made to glitter before 
the eyes of the young girl the embroidered coat, 
the fifteen thousand francs of income, and the title 
of marchioness, and in that way the marriage had 
been brought about. 

“ So, then,” said I to myself, winding my way in 
despair along the boulevard crowded with masks, 
through the noise of carriages, the laughter of the 


128 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


strollers, and the calls of the coachmen ; “ so, then, 
the count refuses me his daughter, me whom he es- 
teems, and gives her to a man for whom he has pub- 
licly expressed his contempt. And the world, who 
would have received, perhaps, with amazement the 
announcement of my marriage with Mademoiselle 
de Brugal, will find it quite natural for her to 
espouse the Marquis de Mauvezin, grown old by 
debauch more than by age, and whose mercenary 
apostasy it bad once stigmatized as an outrageous 
scandal ! What do I say ? She herself has forgot- 
ten me. In less than a year, the repeated counsels 
of her family and their perfidious insinuations have 
awakened in that young heart the love of luxury, 
pride, coquetry, and the thousand little feminine 
passions, and have drowned her nobler instincts. 
Ah! how great is the distance that separates the 
young girl who only yet listens to the voice of her 
heart, from the one who has allowed herself to be 
drawn into the wretched vanities of this world, 
and how society warps our souls ! ” 

All these ideas fermented in my heart, and de- 
posited there less of grief than contempt. My 
education was being made. 

After one or two hours recklessly walking on the 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


129 


boulevard, I mechanically entered the opera. I had 
only gone a few steps in the passage-way, when I 
was approached by two dominos whom I at once 
recognized. They were Madame Dumont and her 
daughter. I accompanied them to their box, where 
Cora, suffocated by the heat, took off her mask. I 
could not help exclaiming, so much was I struck at 
that moment by her resemblance to Iolande. They 
noticed my emotion ; but taking entirely to them- 
selves my eager civilities and my excitement, of 
which they were unable to divine the true cause, 
they accepted me as their cavalier during the ball. 
After supper I escorted them home. I called sev- 
eral times in the course of the following days. I 
found, I know not what soured pleasure in that re- 
semblance, and while comparing Iolande and Cora, 
I asked myself whether I had the right, after what 
had happened, to give a higher rank in my es- 
teem to the young girl well-born, religiously brought 
up, who could thus sell coldly to a man whom she 
did not love, a heart she had already pledged to 
another, than I should to the unfortunate child 
whom a deplorable education, joined to poverty and 
corruption, had condemned to inevitable misery. 

6 * 


130 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


X. 

One morning, while alone in my room, my door 
opened, and the Count de Brugal, whom I had met 
two or three times at the utmost during the past 
year, appeared before me. 

“ My very dear sir,” he said, offering me his hand, 
with the affectionate smile and amiable ease which 
never forsook him, “ I came to express to you in 
person the gratification that your conduct has af- 
forded us. Upon my word, you have shown your- 
self a man — and a thorough man. Accept my com- 
pliments.” 

1 bowed without replying. 

“ You know all, I suppose % ” he remarked, with- 
out even appearing to notice my confusion. “ Ah ! 
that dear child, how she has suffered — she has greatly 
suffered — as you have, without doubt ; but, finally, 
thank Heaven, she is consoled — as you are, are you 
not ? Is not life one constant scene of suffering and 
mutual consolation ? And I have now to inform 
you that the marriage will be celebrated next 
Thursday.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


131 


“ I knew it, sir,” I replied without affectation ; 
“ and I congratulate you on having found a son-in- 
law worthy of you.” 

“He is perfect,” exclaimed the count, “and in 
every respect just the husband to suit my daughter 
— elegant, talented, fond of pleasure, of luxury, 
horses, really quite of our world. At first she de- 
tested him, but in the end she will adore him. I 
know that some puritans reproach the marquis for 
the office he has accepted under the present govern- 
ment; but what of it? And, besides, his private 
fortune had suffered. How, if we cannot find words 
enough of contempt for those kind of desertions, 
which arise from an ignoble want of political con- 
viction, we must only look with indulgence on some 
exceptional cases where members of the nobility are, 
so to say, compelled ostensibly to leave our cause, in 
order to rebuild their fortunes and to find the means 
to keep up proper appearances.” 

I replied by some short, vague words, avoiding 
with great care any appearance of recrimination 
unworthy of me. The count also informed me that 
immediately after the ceremony the newly-married 
pair would leave for Fontainebleau, where they in- 
tended to pass, in the harmonious silence of the 


132 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


forest, the first days of their honeymoon. Then he 
left, swearing anew, by all the Olympian gods and 
Paradise, that he was the most liberal democrat in 
France and my best friend. 

My course was decided upon. 

I hastened to Madame Dumont, whom, to my great 
joy, I found alone in the back shop. The presence 
of Cora might have made it difficult to manage the 
affair which brought me there, and perhaps have 
spoiled my plans, because the conversation that I 
wished to have with her mother, and of which the 
foolish old glove woman was incapable of feeling the 
impertinence, might have profoundly humiliated the 
poor child, and it was that which, at any price, I 
most wanted to avoid. Excuse me, sir, if I do not 
narrate that scene — insulting parody on Mademoiselle 
de Brugal — nor the debates which precede most mar- 
riages, and which had certainly preceded hers. If 
you have ever witnessed, moreover, any matrimonial 
negotiations ; if you have ever heard the bargaining 
for the marriage portion, the calculations as to the 
required number of handkerchiefs, stockings, and 
linen, the speculations without end on the chances of 
life or death of the grandparents, nay even of the 
parties themselves; if you have seen a marriage 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


133 


nearly broken off, or entirely so, because the 
bride, the tender bride, demands an addition of 
ten thousand francs more to the dowry, or because 
the family of the bride, of the chaste bride, demands 
that the adversary — yes, it is really that; I insist 
upon the word — that the adversary allow four or five 
thousand francs more for the trousseau of his wife ; 
if you have witnessed those subtle usurers’ rapacities, 
those old Jew vilfanies, those lawyers’ tricks, which 
constitute what was formerly called the sacra- 
ment of marriage, the gala-day of youth, and what 
is called to-day the great business of life, you can 
form to yourself an idea of the sad comedy that I 
took pleasure in playing before Madame Dumont, 
in order to secure the services of her daughter for a 
scheme of vengeance which I had planned. During 
these ridiculous negotiations I fancied to myself the 
parents of Iolande discussing with the future hus- 
band the contract for their daughter in the same 
terms, and I said to myself: “ After all, can a 
woman be won otherwise nowadays, and is it not 
always the same old story? Was not Mademoiselle 
de Brugal handed over by her noble family to the 
Marquis de Mauvezin, very much in the same way 
as Cora was intrusted to me by her foolish old 


134 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARI8. 


mother? Only Cora was hired to assist me in my 
scheme, while the other. . . .” 

In this comedy my spite found a bitter pleasure ; 
I plunged with delight into this soured vengeance. 
The woman who had betrayed me without any 
reason, by her lightness and her vanity, I felt I 
had the right to despise, and that right I exercised 
with a sort of rage. It seemed to me that this mental 
assimilation between Iolande and Cora, and the 
moral superiority which I credited to the latter, ex- 
pressed exactly the feelings of contempt which I 
now experienced for the one who, but so recently, 
had all my love, all my respect. 

Once assured of the consent of Cora, I informed 
her that we were to leave the next day for Fon- 
tainebleau. It was the very day that the Marquis 
and Marchioness de Mauvezin had announced that, 
after coming from the church, they were to leave 
for the same town. 

On arriving, I ascertained the hotel where the 
newly-married couple were stopping. They showed 
me the windows of their rooms. I chose mine ex- 
actly opposite, opening on the garden of the same 
house. 

In the evening I could see a gentle light through 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


135 


their blinds. On the white curtains two shadows 
were moving, coming and going from one room 
to the other, growing larger and smaller, disap- 
pearing and then returning again. At this sight 
I was seized with a burning fever, which I tried in 
vain to calm. At the thought that there, so near 
me, Iolande reposed in the arms of another, giving 
all her love to one whom she scarcely knew, . . . 
all that love which, in a moment of sincerity, she 
had bestowed upon me, and which I had respected, 
so much was her honor dearer to me than my love ; — • 
at the thought that the remembrance of our virginal 
love, presenting itself suddenly to her mind, was 
profaned, perhaps, by the caresses which she was 
lavishing on her old husband, I choked with jeal- 
ousy, grief, and anger. Strange nature ours ! These 
foolish ideas tortured me, and held me nailed to the 
spot. I would have liked to burn the house where 
this infamous treason was perpetrated — that was the 
name I then gave to this meanest of feminine per- 
fidies — and I could not take my eyes from the 
windows of that room where the last light had been 
extinguished, and which was now wrapped in the 
general darkness of the night. 

I went out in the streets of Fontainebleau in order 


136 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


to refresh my burning forehead by contact with the 
night air. In my insane wanderings I met several 
roundsmen. One of them stopped me, taking me 
for a lunatic, but allowed me to pass, on ascertain- 
ing that I was only love-cracked. Towards five 
o’clock in the morning I returned to the hotel. 

After an hour or two of painful and agitated 
rest, I saw the window opposite to mine open wide, 
admitting the first rays of the morning sun. The 
marchioness — she was henceforth a marchioness — 
came and stood there alone, in a white wrapper and 
with uncovered head. Her face was as fresh as morn- 
ing. With an indifferent eye, as calm as a lawyer 
after a trial or an actress after the play, she looked 
vaguely before her in the garden. In haste I sent 
for Cora, requesting her to make a similar toilet to 
that of the marchioness, and placing her before the 
window, I entwined my arm around the waist of 
the young girl, and pressed one of her hands in 
mine. The two women thus placed looked the 
image of each other. At this apparition Iolande 
appeared at first stupefied, and as if thunder-struck 
before this exact reproduction of herself; then a 
cloud passed over her face ; I saw her turn pale, close 
the window with a feverish hgtste, and disappear. 


twenty years m paeis. 


137 


She had seen me, and I was revenged ! The 
same evening the marquis and his wife left the 
hotel, and I returned to Paris. 

I need not say to you that my relations with Cora 
ended here. She would have brought to my mind 
remembrances too painful for me to continue the 
acquaintance. My costly vengeance once satisfied, 
I gave back the captive bird her liberty, and to 
Madame Dumont the right of continuing to extol 
before the elegant customers of her perfume shop 
the immaculate worth of her daughter. From that 
moment I lost sight of her, and what became of 
her afterwards I never knew. 

“ This is,” said my host with simplicity, stopping 
his narrative, “ the first chapter of my history. Is 
it not enough for to-day ? Let us see what time it 
is.” 

The clock pointed at one in the morning. 

“ I do not wish, sir,” I said, “ to impose upon 
your kindness. But you must promise to give me 
the next chapter.” 

“ Well, will you promise me in your turn to pro- 
long your stay at Franquevaux ? ” 

“ With all my heart.” 

“ Shall I tell you ? Your presence here makes me 


138 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


feel young again ; and, thanks to you, I look back 
to the past, and contemplate once more the scenes of 
my youth. All the friends of my younger days 
reappear like shadows, which move in the distance 
on the other side of a broad river — the one, most 
likely, that the ancients called the river of oblivion. 
Where is the man who, on looking behind him, and 
in measuring the space gone over, does not ask him- 
self the question, as I do, if life is not all a 
dream ? ” 

Thereupon he touched his glass to mine after re- 
filling it, lighted his candle, handed me one, and we 
prepared to retire. 

“ Gently,’ 5 he said in a whisper, as in walking we 
made a little noise ; “ she sleeps ! But, pshaw 1 n 
smiling with good humor, “ she will forgive ns.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


139 


XL 

The next day, when I found myself in the fields 
again, my gun on my shoulder, and in the company 
of the monk of Franquevaux, all he had told me 
on the previous night seemed like a dream, so little 
did this robust countryman, this hunter, with his 
sunburnt face and nimble step, running through the 
fallow ground, jumping ditches, and gathering up 
the wounded birds, resemble the elegant man of the 
world whom my host had portrayed to me. The 
commonplace hunt among the marshes and vines 
seemed to him not a sufficient inducement to detain 
me in his solitude ; he wanted to initiate me into 
the less known and more exciting sports which be- 
long exclusively to that locality. We accordingly 
started one afternoon for the arid plain of Crau. 
A party waited for us in one of those shady farms 
which are like an oasis in the Prove^al desert. 
The arrival of our hunter was saluted by cries of 
welcome. He had written beforehand to the farm- 
er, requesting him to get up, in my honor, a red- 
partridge hunt. Armed with a simple switch, and 


140 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


mounted on horses as ardent as they were nimble, 
and which wander in troops in the solitude of the 
Sauvage , we pursued the frightened birds through 
this sea of sand and pebbles, at the utmost speed of 
our animals. It is easy to distinguish in the barren, 
open plain the cover of the partridge ; all you have 
to do is to go straight at them. They take wing ; 
you rush after them. In the midst of a cloud of 
dust they all pass by like a hurricane, — horses, dogs, 
and hunters. After being started three or four 
times in this way, the poor bird, exhausted, dragging 
its wings, hides under the tufts of grass, or crouches 
between two stones, and endeavors to avert by 
stratagem a peril from which it can no longer es- 
cape by flight. Then the horsemen run at full 
speed to the spot where it is concealed, and with the 
sole aid of their sticks and dogs catch them, with- 
out even getting off their horses. Preceded by 
some of the large greyhounds of the Camargue, 
we ran the hare also in the plain of Crau ; but the 
hunt which has left on my mind the most brilliant 
recollection was that of the sea-duck, which I wit- 
nessed on the pond of Scamandre. 

The day on which it is to take place is fixed in 
advance, and bills are posted in all the neighboring 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. l4l 

towns to inform the public. At sunrise each of the 
boats which are moored at the shore takes in one 01 
two men, armed with guns, besides the oarsman, 
who already occupies it. Soon, at a signal agreed 
upon, the flotilla starts. Arranged in semicircle and 
closing up at each new stroke of the oar, it glides 
silently over the water and aims for the centre of 
the pond, where may be seen grouped together the 
black mass of ducks. The attentive silence of the 
hunters, the order which is preserved in the general 
movements of the boats, the thought which invol- 
untarily comes to one of the accidents which might 
arise from the least imprudence among this large 
number of armed men, the gentle motion of the 
waves which sparkle in the rising sun, interest you, 
in spite of yourself, in a scene which is full of 
grandeur and poetry. The birds thus surrounded 
by a fatal circle, which gradually closes in upon 
them, finally are obliged to resort to their wings for 
safety. With a noise like thunder, they all take 
flight at once, dispersing in every direction, and are 
compelled, in order to gain the land, to pass over the 
heads of the hunters. Suddenly a tumultuous noise 
succeeds the previous silence. It is a confused cry 
of men, barking of dogs, drowned in a fire of mus- 


142 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


ketry as loud as that from a platoon of soldiers, as 
well kept up as a file fire, and which can be heard for 
ten miles around. The birds that have escaped the 
lead of the hunters in the boats meet on the shore 
another army, ten times more numerous, of green 
marksmen, of hardened poachers, of peasants too 
poor to pay their ten francs for a boat, who receive 
them in their turn with shot of every description, 
and for a moment the discharge from the shore re- 
sponds like a loud echo to that from the pond. In 
an hour’s time all is over ; the destruction is com- 
plete. The few ducks that survive have taken 
refuge in the neighboring ponds. I do not know 
of any hunt more abundant or more expeditious. 
It often happens that the hunters divide among 
themselves twenty thousand of these birds killed in 
less than two hours. 

The monk of Franquevaux gave me also the rare 
pleasure of a flamingo hunt on the Vaccares. 
Thanks to him, I have been able to have a near 
view of these flocks of huge birds with their bril- 
liant plumage and melancholy attitude, guarded in 
their distant ponds by four sentinels silently 
perched on one foot, who utter at the approach of 
the least danger the cry of alarm, and never quit 


/ 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


143 


their place until the entire family are safe, and even 
allow themselves to be killed at their posts, like in- 
trepid soldiers, in order to save the retreating army. 
Thanks to him, I have followed with a charmed eye 
the graceful undulations of this winged flock, bal- 
ancing through the air like an immense white scarf 
embroidered with gold and pink silk floating in the 
wind, and I have had the good luck to shoot down 
some of these magnificent stilt-walkers, which until 
then I had never seen but in zoological gardens and 
in the glass cases of the museums of natural history. 

In spite of the new distractions that my host con- 
stantly invented for me, my curiosity, awakened by 
the first chapter of his history, made me hold him to 
his promise, and each day I obtained from him, 
though not without difficulty, some additional pages 
of the romance of which I had heard but the com- 
mencement. Sometimes I listened to him, seated by 
his side under a tree, when the hunters took their 
noisy dinner; sometimes it was in a boat while 
tracing out a passage through the reeds of the 
marshes, or rowing light and free over the sleep- 
ing pond. These recitals, ten times interrupted, 
taken up, left off again to be taken up anew, I can- 
not pretend to give here in all their details. It 


144 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARTS. 


would be necessary to tell also the thousand circum- 
stances, the halts, and the excursions after which they 
were made, and to describe even the picturesque 
landscape in which they were framed. My memory 
and my pen would prove unequal to the task. 1 
will, therefore, ask of my reader to allow me simply 
to collect all that I remember, and offer it to him 
in my own name. The .monk will take up his own 
story in good time. Meanwhile, if I dare to prom- 
ise a faithful description, I cannot disguise the fact 
that the confidences of my host will lose a great 
deal of their most attractive character by passing 
through my mouth ; for their charm for me arose 
especially from the contrast of these Parisian re- 
citals, coming from the lips of this peasant of the 
lower Phone. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


145 


xn. 

Wounded in his pride, deceived in his affections, 
struck to the heart, the last we saw of Maurice he 
was burning the gods he had previously worshipped. 
The humiliating refusal he had received indicated a 
disdain which was not only limited to himself, but 
even embraced the entire class to which he belonged. 
The more his political faith had shown itself simple 
and disinterested, the more his heart bled at this 
first rough contact with social vanities. However, 
in spite of his anger, which he was the first himself 
to ridicule when he spoke of it twenty years after, 
he did not like at once publicly to break off with 
the past ; not on account of any feeling of childish 
pride : a far nobler motive actuated him. Who- 
ever changes his politics for other reasons than vul- 
gar interest, becomes to the party he abandons what 
a child becomes to his family after leaving the 
parental roof. Even the conviction that he was on 
the wrong path does not extinguish in him all sym- 
pathy for the errors of his youth, and it is thus that 
we often find in the opinions of old people, though 
7 


140 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


many years have intervened, traces of their former 
predilections. In the midst of this grievous disor • 
der of sentiments and ideas, some kind of distraction 
became necessary to Maurice’s over-excited mind. 
Besides, his brilliant intellect could not remain inac- 
tive very long. If political discussions were for the 
moment impossible in the present uncertainty of 
his opinions, other labors at least were allowed him. 
What would prevent him from seeking in the calm 
and pure joys of philosophical studies and the ex- 
citement of literary struggles forgetfulness of his 
feverish preoccupations and his bitter deceptions? 
The enjoyments of the mind often console the suf- 
ferings of the heart. During his short career as a 
journalist he had come in contact with a great num- 
ber of Parisian writers. His relations of good fel- 
lowship had opened to him all the doors of the 
republic of letters, and he could enter at his pleas- 
ure through history, romance, the drama, or criti- 
cism. If ultimate success depended on his talent, 
on his will alone depended the beginning. 

It was especially towards the drama that Maurice 
felt inclined. It seemed to him that, if he were to 
find anywhere diversion and forgetfulness, it would 
be in this kind of occupation, which is a mixture of 




TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 147 

pleasures, labors, and violent emotions, and which, 
from its vicissitudes, as well as from its actual 
aim, deserves indeed the name of “ dramatic life.” 
What man, besides, does not remember the impres- 
sion produced on him at twenty years by the prestige 
of the theatre ? The magnificence and illusion of 
the stage appointments, the intelligent combination 
of all the arts placed at the disposal of every kind 
of seduction, women in fanciful dresses, some really 
beautiful, others embellished by all the artifices of 
an alluring coquetry, the attraction of the dialogue, 
the interest of the plot, the apparent reality of the 
most chimerical fiction, the warm atmosphere of the 
hall, all conspire to stupefy the senses, to benumb 
reason, and to open to the charmed imagination an 
unknown world. 

What attracted Maurice still more to the theatre 
was the glorious possibility of a sudden success. To 
arise in the morning lost and unknown in the crowd, 
and to retire at night, applauded, complimented, al- 
most renowned; to reach in one day — what do I 
say? — in one hour, that notoriety which so many 
distinguished men have vainly pursued in other ways 
during a lifetime ; to see one’s self after a first work 
become the object of the praise, or at least of the 


148 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


attention of the press ; such was the perspective that 
charmed his young imagination. lie entertained, 
moreover, a high idea of the mission of a dramatic 
author, who is in direct contact with the crowd, 
whom he delights, excites, alternately can make 
laugh or cry, and in whom he can stir at will 
every bad or noble passion ; for he was persuaded 
that writers endowed with this magnificent privi- 
lege should understand its social importance, and 
not hesitate to sacrifice every interest — -the interest 
even of their very fortune and popularity — to that 
of the public. Intelligent, with a fine mind, 
thoroughly versed in the study of the great mas- 
ters, why should lie not succeed as well as any 
other? In this desire for a sudden triumph (he 
recollection of Iolande also entered somewhat into 
his thoughts, I suppose. Unfortunately during his 
former labors in the great literary world he had cul- 
tivated fewer relations with dramatic writers than 
any others. The only one in any way known to 
him was Yilfrid Daroux, who wrote for two small 
theatres, and whose name, from being placarded 
on all the walls and fences, had quite the ap- 
pearance of being that of a renowned playwright. 

Yilfrid Daroux was a merry companion, a good 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


149 


liver, a gay beau and always ready for some sport, a 
real jolly fellow, who took nothing seriously, neither 
his profession, his talent, his person, nor any other 
person, and who would have put himself in his own 
vaudevilles if by doing so he could have obtained 
a satisfactory copyright. He excelled especially 
in stanzas, which he wrote for other playwrights, 
making in that way on an average twelve thousand 
francs a year, and though he liked to lead a jolly 
bachelor’s life, he always took good care to see two- 
thirds of his income safely invested as a guarantee 
for the future. 

Maurice was yet questioning whether he should 
go and see him, when one day chance brought 
them together face to face at the corner of the 
boulevard and the rue de Grammont. 

“ Ah ! my dear Maurice,” exclaimed Vilfrid, hold- 
ing out his hand ; “ where in the name of goodness 
have you been this long time ? ” 

Our two friends arm in arm walked away, follow- 
ing the boulevards in the direction of the Champs 
Elysees. In about five minutes Maurice had turned 
the conversation to the subject in question, and con- 
fided to Vilfrid his literary aspirations. 

“ I do declare ! ” exclaimed the latter, interrupting 


150 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


him at the first sentence, with an air of profound 
stupefaction. “You turn author? You must have 
plenty of money, then ! ” . . . . 

“ I have enough to live upon. Still I think stage 

successes pay well.” 

“Oh! oh! it is the theatre you are after; you 
want to get rich? Well, let us see; have you a 
plan?” 

“ A plan ? ” 

“Yes, a plan of the play, a dramatic situation. 
Let us have it, I am at your service, I will write the 
stanzas for you.” 

Maurice had revolved for some time in his mind 
a plot, which, in certain details, was suggestive of 
his own history with Iolande. He mentioned it to 
Yilfrid. When he had finished : 

“ Oh ! no, my dear sir,” replied the latter, shaking 
his head with a most discouraging air ; “ that won’t 
do. I do not deny the interest of your subject, its 
philosophical bearing; but the public, don’t you see, 
require something different. I would like more 
stirring scenes : for instance, some beautiful women 
bathing, and surprised by a bargeman. Don’t you 
see the stage effect? Scenes like that are always 
new, when the ladies are not too faded.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


151 


“ But that is not the drama,” exclaimed Maurice, 
stupefied ; 44 that is rather tableaux vivants.” 

“ How is that ! ” replied Yilfrid, with an ironical 
affectation of astonishment ; 44 then according to you, 
dramatic art would be that beautiful kind of stuff 
which we call a 4 literary piece,’ and for which 
the copyist gets one hundred and twenty francs and 
the author sixty.” 

44 In a dramatic composition I must say that I 

like above all things interest, morality, sty ” 

44 Style ! he says style. Well then, poor fellow, re- 
nounce your project, you are not born for the theatre. 
Do you know how we get rid of an unpleasant rival 
in the minds of our directors ? With a single word : 
4 He writes well.’ Woe to him who draws upon 
himself, and especially who deserves, this perfidious 
praise ! He is lost .... There is but one refuge 
left to him: La Comedie Franchise.” 

44 Is he then so much to be pitied ? ” 

44 Yes, indeed; a fine opening your Theatre Fran- 
9ais for a man who has any activity in his brains. 
The most illustrious poet, in the whole couiee of 
his life, hardly ever succeeds in getting played ten 
times there. Can one pass for a dramatic author with 
,en plays to his name ? I am scarcely thirty years 


152 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


old, and already one hundred and nineteen plays 
of mine have seen the stage. My name is more 
popular than those of Alfred de Musset and De 
Sainte-Beuve. I hope next year to become a mem- 
ber of the committee of dramatic authors. ... Not 
that I care so much for the committee part,” added 
he, lowering his voice in a confidential manner; 
“ but I am informed that its members are chosen, in 
preference, by the minister for the cross of honor.” 

“ The cross of honor ! ” Yilfrid here pronounced 
the word which revealed his hidden ambition ; the 
cross of honor ! his dream ! his chimera ! It was in 
vain he affected to speak of it lightly. Every time 
his jokes touched upon the red ribbon, they would 
invariably become gloomy, and betray his suffer- 
ing aspirations. How he got the idea into his head, 
he, the spoiled child of fortune, he so happy to live, 
and so easy to live with, no one ever knew. “A 
little bit of ribbon,” said he musingly one day to a 
friend, “ gives one such a military air.” 

“Well,” he continued, “would you like to accom- 
pany me this evening to one of our theatres ? We 
will go in the side scenes ; I will show yon the very 
interior of the seraglio, and the secrets of the trade, 
and you can decide afterwards for yourself, if it suits 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


153 


you better to die of starvation, trying to create master- 
pieces, or to live like a nabob by getting off some 
light trash to suit the taste of the day.” 

I leave you to judge if Maurice accepted the 
offer with eagerness. A few hours after, excited as 
a choir boy at his first mass, he entered by the pri- 
vate door for actors into one of the small theatres. 
The mysterious veil was now to be rent from be- 
fore his eyes, he was about to be brought into the 
presence of these marvels of beauty, grace, and har- 
mony, which from a distance had so much charmed 
him ; he was at last to meet, on the very field where 
were engaged in glorious and pacific contest, those 
writers of high renown, those princes of the drama, 
whose brilliant minds had dazzled Europe, and 
whose names had so often reechoed in his ears ! At 
this thought how his heart must have beat 1 ” 


154 


TWENTY YEARS IN EARIS. 


i 

xm. 

When he entered the side scenes the first piece 
had just finished, and in the midst of the noise pro- 
duced by the changing of scenes, the hurried going 
and coming of the machinists, the troop of figurants 
flocked to their room in disorder. Their faces soiled 
with perspiration and paint, their clumsy forms and 
costumes, which near by appeared to Maurice as 
threadbare and disgusting as they had seemed fresh 
and graceful at a distance, left upon his mind a pain- 
ful impression.” 

“ Bah ! ” he said to himself ; “ these are only yet 
the low chorus singers, I suppose, who have not the 
privilege of even entering the green-room of the 
actors. But in that sanctum I shall find grace, 
intellect, loveliness, the favorite actresses, and the 
renowned authors.” 

The green-room in question formed a square hall, 
furnished with narrow benches covered with a green 
worsted material. Two movable lamps, fastened 
at the sides of a large glass, allowed the actors to see 
themselves from head to foot in a good light, and to 


TWENTY TEAKS IN PARIS. 


155 


give a last glance at their toilets before appearing 
upon the stage. Near the chimney, where a bright 
fire was blazing, were grouped, seated and standing, 
some young men and women, while at the farther 
end of the room laid a stout personage, wearing 
spectacles, profoundly asleep. 

u Vilfrid,” whispered Maurice, “ now you are go- 
ing to point out to me the leading characters ; we 
will pass on afterwards to the ladies. By the way, 
who is that happy author, who has such an easy con- 
science, if I may judge by his sleep ? ” 

“ What ? ” exclaimed Yilfrid, “ you do not know 
Perron, Adrian Perron, the principal of the house 
of Perron, Mengin, Domange & Co.? This company, 
which makes a specialty of the vaudeville, the annual 
review, and things of that kind, is represented by a 
single individual in order to shield its members, who 
are employed for the greater part in some govern- 
ment office, from the inconveniences of publicity, 
without interfering with their income as authors. 
The house does an excellent business, and pays every 
year magnificent profits to its partners.” 

“ Why, that is quite interesting ; go on.” 

“ With pleasure. Do you see that jolly fellow 
there, who stands near the chimney, ogling that an- 


156 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


gel with transparent tights and blue wings. He is 
the broad-whiskered Lemonadino, the most original 
and most witty philosopher in Paris, whose name one 
line morning suggested to him the idea of opening 
on the boulevard a model caf4 : — fifty billiard tables, 
one hundred chandeliers, two hundred candelabra ; 
the walls covered with anacreontic frescos, mirrors 
and gilding everywhere; the taste for aristocratic 
luxury diffused among the masses ; an exquisite liv- 
ing within the reach of poor wretches with not thirty 
cents in their pocket for a dinner — in a word, the 
Cafe du Progres! If his syrups are as sweet as 
his words are piquant, and if his lemonades are as 
good as his vaudevilles, his fortune is made. The 
amiable individual who at this moment is taking his 
arm to lead him away is Cliamprose. Revere in him 
the man who is one day to bury you : he is at the 
same time the public undertaker, and the j oiliest of 
our vaudevillists.” 

In a corner was seated a broken-down old man 
with white and thin locks, his clothing forlorn and 
threadbare, and who, morose and solitary, gave a sad 
smile to the merry remarks that happened to reach 
his ears. Maurice pointed him out to Vilfrid. 

“ Alas ! ” said the latter with an expression of visi 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


157 


ble sympathy. ' “ That* poor old fellow has also 
known the intoxication of success. Like us, he has 
known how to get off some smart stanzas ; the pret- 
tiest actresses have contended for his favors, and the 
impressarios have fought over his manuscripts. To- 
day you see him reduced to solicit of the directors, 
with nearly the same air as a poor blind man begging 
for a penny, that they may be pleased occasionally 
to take up some of his old pieces. The sight of these 
unfortunate waifs oppress my heart.” 

Among the women who thronged the green-room, 
several shocked him at first by the freedom of 
their language and the boldness of their gestures, 
and involuntarily recalled to his mind the words of 
I know not what philosopher, who asserts that cer- 
tain women do not belong to their sex, and as men 
would be only failures. Some other young beauties, 
on the contrary, with a frank physiognomy and bear- 
ing, attracted him by their angelic sweetness, the 
limpidity of their smile and their modest attitude. 
Tie approached, anxious to hear them speak, for they 
made him think o : the charming fairy whose words 
in falling from her mouth changed into flowers and 
pearls. lie listened, . . . but soon found out that 
they only resembled the celebrated princess of the 


158 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


German tale, whose every word changed into a 
toad. 

“ Well,” he said to himself, “ if I ever have a son, 
I will take him at an early day into the side scenes 
of a theatre. Distant illusion is more dangerous 
than reality. ” 

After the play, Yilfrid proposed to Maurice to go 
to a neighboring cafe, where a large number of dra- 
matic authors were in the habit of congregating 
every evening. What picture could I make of any 
of them in particular likely to attract attention? 
All intelligent well-educated men nowadays resem- 
ble each other. There was only one, named Des- 
jardins, who, by the contrast of his person, with the 
idea that we are apt to form of a play-writer, 
distinguished himself from the rest. Fancy to 
yourself a man of about fifty years of age, bald as 
Csesar, with a triple chin resting on a wide cravat 
as on a cushion, with fat and newly shaven cheeks, 
and who required for himself alone in his majestic 
bigness the entire side of a table. The first con- 
ception you had of him was that of solemnity. He 
was solemn in his gestures, solemn in repose, solemn 
wdien he spoke, and solemn in his silence ; and 
by reason of this magisterial gravity, his friends 


TWENTY TEAKS IN PARIS. 


159 


never called him otherwise than the “venerable 
prelate.” 

A graduate from the law school, and engaged 
in preparing students for college, Matthieu Rous- 
sel one day said to himself that it was about 
time to choose a final career. Should he solicit 
employment from the government? Should he 
negotiate for a notary’s or lawyer’s office ? The 
first attempt was uncertain as regards success, and 
promised but poor returns. The second required 
an outlay which was beyond his means. “ Pshaw,” 
exclaimed Matthieu, “ I will try business. Or, 
better still, suppose I try my hand at play-writing ? ” 

He then decided to compose a vaudeville in one 
act, which he left under an assumed name, the sly 
fellow, at the office of a small theatre. The piece 
succeeded admirably — it was during the month of 
July — and, since that glorious night, the nom de 
plume of Desjardins, henceforth celebrated by suc- 
cess, is the only name by which our author is 
known, and whose real one is never even suspected to 
be Matthieu Roussel. Once his foot into the fortress, 
Desjardins very soon understood that it would be 
more profitable for him to study the wants of the 
theatre than art itself, and to live in familiar inter- 


160 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


course with the managers, than with the old and glo- 
rious masters. And then the venerable prelate was 
so imposing ! he had such a noble air ! How could 
one reject the work of an author who approaches 
with such a smiling gravity, who seats himself in 
your easy-chair as if he really felt himself at home 
there, who weighs every word, moves his head 
w T ith such an intelligent air, and who knows so well 
howto use the proper interjection when he happens to 
speak of the able impulse that the new manager has 
given to the theatre? Through this wise conduct 
he has been able, in less than twenty years, to see 
represented on the stage more than two hundred of 
his pieces — parodies, reviews, tableaux vivants, fairy 
scenes, and vaudevilles of all kinds — which bring 
him in an annual income of fifteen thousand francs, 
and allow him to consider himself fifteen times 
superior to our greatest of poets, who, he has been 
heard to say with a compassionate disdain, are con- 
demned to work for nothing but glory. 

After ten minutes of ordinary conversation : 

“ By the way,” exclaimed a new-comer, “ can any 
one give us the theatre news this evening ? ” 

Maurice at this word bounded with joy on his 
bench ; he listened with both ears and eyes. He 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


161 


now expected to hear the dramatic authors converse 
together on their art ! From this discussion what 
light would be shed upon the subject for him ! how 
many new ideas ! how many ingenious discoveries ! 
how many observations verified by facts which he 
could turn to his advantage ! -Attentive and 
silent, he prepared himself to witness, with a fervent 
composure, this little feast of intellect. 

A sudden cross-fire of replies and noisy exclama- 
tions answered the question which had just been 
asked. 

“Twelve hundred and twenty-one at the Vau- 
deville, ” replied a voice. 

“ Seventeen hundred and thirteen at the Varie- 
tes,” called out another. 

“ Nine hundred and fifteen at the Gymnase.” 

“ Fourteen hundred and thirty at the Ambigu.” 

“ Three thousand and two at the Porte-Saint- 
Martin.” 

“Nineteen hundred and sixty at the Palais 
Royal.” 

“Notice, gentlemen,” gravely interrupted Des- 
jardins, “ that the thermometer has gone down eight 
degrees. There is snow on the ground.” 

“ The Palais Royal,” replied, with a visible sense 


162 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


of literary pride, an author whose play had been 
produced that evening at this amusing theatre, “ the 
Palais Royal has gone up, however, thirty-two 
francs and thirty-five centimes.” 

“We cannot deny the fact, gentlemen,” said 
Desjardins always in a solemn manner, “ that this 
increase is symptomatic. Still I should like you to 
notice that the public who frequent this theatre are 
perhaps less influenced than any other by the pros- 
pect of a ministerial crisis.” 

“ The Gymnase,” exclaimed a new voice, “ has 
gone down four hundred francs, and the ‘Vaude- 
ville 5 six hundred.” 

“ Stock has gone down much more in propor- 
tion,” replied the venerable prelate, in a triumphant 
tone. 

“ Are they not going ,” thought Maurice, “ to say 
something of the merit of the works, arid the talent 
of the authors ? ” 

Vain hope ! For an hour the conversation kept 
on the money market, on the fine weather, the bad 
weather, the ministerial crisis, and the next govern- 
ment loan. As to the pieces themselves, or the in- 
fluence of their merit upon their success, it remained 
entirely out of the question. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


163 


“ I am thinking,” said Maurice, the next day to 
Vilfrid, u if that was a reunion of dramatic authors 
that you took me to last evening, or a miniature ex- 
change ? ” 

“ What nonsense!” replied Yilfrid, laughing. 
“ I have introduced you to some good fellows, vau- 
devillists by profession, in the same way as one is 
a lawyer, a physician, a journalist, a merchant, or 
anything else. In virtue of the axiom jprimo vivere , 
one’s vocation must sooner or later be transformed 
into business. You talk like a professor of rhetoric 
who over his desk throws at the theatre a fiery glance. 
I bet that you sigh inwardly over its decline, and 
that in your youthful fervor you nourish the secret 
hope of restoring it to its past splendor by some 
brilliant masterpiece. A beautiful dream, my dear 
fellow ! Only you are not the first who has enjoyed 
it. How many have I seen fly to the rescue, alas ! 
as courageous and as ardent as you. They too 
wished to purify, ennoble, and transform dramatic 
art. After five or six unfortunate attempts, these 
fierce reformers have invariably come to the con- 
clusion that the road to the theatre is the one on 
which those who wear new shoes feel the most un- 
comfortable, and they finally understand, though 


164 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


often late in the day, that with flocks of men, as 
with flocks of sheep, the surest way is to follow the 
beaten track. Obscure and disdained, they have 
seen themselves, moreover, threatened with star- 
vation; and that is generally the moment when 
these ill- appreciated geniuses condescend to write 
their first farce. Several of our most amusing vau- 
deville writers are tragical poets whom despair has 
driven into low comedy. Now you know the truth; 
do you want names ? ” 

“You are very encouraging, I must confess,” 
murmured Maurice. 

“Take us then,” replied Yilfrid, “for what we 
are, and what we mean to be : a set of hard-working 
men, who do anything that comes within our busi- 
ness, and who have no other ambition than to get 
good returns. Do we not transact our business on 
sound commercial principles? Under the penalty 
of forfeiture, do we not deliver, at the time agreed 
upon, the ordered merchandise ? In short, do we not 
create literary associations, which are real business 
firms? Wait,” added he gayly, “I must show you 
my cash-book.” 

^ Your what?” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


165 


“ Cash-book, kept in double entry. Who knows \ 
my accounts may reconcile you to the business.” 

Yilfrid drew from his drawer a memorandum 
book and handed it to his friend. 

“ This is,” said Yilfrid, while Maurice examined 
with stupefaction the curious register, “ this is the 
true Theatre Comique , the true theatre of modern 
progress ! ” 

The latter, after glancing over the book, stopped 
at the first three months of the year, the most prof- 
itable in the business of a vaudevillist. Besides 
there was no need of going any farther to see at 
once the spirit of order which pervaded all the oper- 
ations of his happy friend. No merchant could 
have kept his books with more regularity or pre- 
cision. Yilfrid made no distinction between any of 
his pieces, -whether applauded or hissed ; they were 
all impartially registered, with the number of per- 
formances obtained, and the amount of copyright. 
To “profit and loss” were inscribed the rejected 
pieces, or those which for some reason or other had 
not been put on the stage. The truth is failure or 
success were all the same to him ; to his mind there 
were no good, bad, or indifferent works ; all he saw 
in the matter was good, bad, or indifferent returns , 


166 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


XIV. 

Notwithstanding his affected disdain for talent 
and good taste, Vilfrid was a man of considerable 
mind ; the author was better than his works, and 
Maurice knew it. For this reason, although he had 
an extremely moderate admiration for the literature 
of his protector, he did not hesitate, when he had 
finished his drama, to submit it to the judgment of 
this sceptical vaudevillist. 

“ I like your piece,” said the latter to him, after 
attentively listening to it, “ and I have confidence 
in my taste, for the reason perhaps that I do not 
weary it much in my own service. If you had 
wished to become one of us, I would have en- 
deavored to open to you the vaudeville theatres, 
and to make you a partner in our receipts. But 
since your aim is at the same time higher and more 
disinterested, we will go straightway and knock at 
the door of the Theatre Fra^ais. Your drama is 
worthy of it. And besides it is the most friendly 
establishment to beginners.” 

The advice responded but too well to Maurice’s 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


167 


secret ambition, and he was not slow to follow it. 
He therefore presented himself the same day at the 
office of the secretary-general of the theatre, handed 
in his manuscript, and requested a reading. At the 
end of three weeks, after the examination of the 
work, the reading was granted ; two months after, he 
appeared before the committee. 

Vilfrid, who was considered an able reader, and 
who had taken upon himself to do the reading for 
his friend, was seated at the table, covered with the 
usual green cloth and surmounted by a small desk, 
before which so many of our greatest poets have sat 
in their turns. After taking a mouthful of water, 
he commenced, while Maurice, scarcely breathing, 
immovable, and rigid in his chair, anxiously watched 
the countenances of the actors, and endeavored 
stealthily to ascertain their impressions; but their 
faces, so expressive and movable on the stage, re- 
mained impenetrable. Hot a smile came to brighten 
them, not a tear escaped their eyelids. One might 
have supposed them to be the impassible masks of the 
Greek theatre. When he had finished, Vilfrid rose, 
bowed silently to the judges who silently returned 
the courtesy, after which he passed into the next 
room with the author of the drama, there to await 


168 


Twenty years ’IN PARIS. 


the result of the ballot. Maurice’s heart beat vio- 
lently. He could hear the noise of the balls falling 
into the urn, and soon after the royal commissioner 
appeared before him. With a grave and measured 
step the latter approached the patient, and tender- 
ing his hand, with a friendly smile : 

“ Sir,” he said, “ accept my sincere compliments. 
Brilliant, eloquent, witty, you have succeeded in 
blending in your work the flights of sincere passion 
with a correctness of detail which is very rare in 
these days.” 

Maurice felt his heart expand. 

“The qualities in which you are wanting are 
those which can only be acquired by time, experi- 
ence of the stage, the art of leaving and entering, 
what shall I say ? the common routine of the busi- 
ness. On the other hand, you possess all those 
which come directly from nature, and which can 
never be acquired, not even by the most indefatiga- 
ble labor — the instinct of the dramatic situation, the 
sentiment of the dialogue, the composition of the 
characters, etc.” 

“ What is the result of the ballot ? ” interrupted 
Vilfrid, who knew what in official language all 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


169 


these fine words amounted to, and eager to know 
what was done. 

“ Three white, six red, and one black. The 
piece is received with corrections.” 

“ Received ! ” cried Maurice, with joy. 

“ With corrections ! ” muttered Vilfrid, making a 
wry face. 

“ What are the corrections indicated by the gen- 
tlemen ? ” naively inquired Maurice. 

The manager looked at him perfectly amazed. 

“ We do not understand each other,” he replied, 
somewhat embarrassed. “When we receive a piece 
with corrections — you may not be aware of it, sir — 
it in reality means that we refuse it.” 

“ Oh ! ” said the poor author, stunned by the 
blow. 

“ Only, it is an encouraging refusal.” 

“And so it is, my dear friend,” gayly replied 
Yilfrid; “I even know authors who have been 
encouraged after this fashion through their whole 
lives.” 

“Would you have preferred a pure and simple 
refusal? ” asked the manager, slightly piqued. 

“ Oh ! sir,” replied Yilfrid, laughing, “ how 

poorly we understand each other! I would have 
8 


170 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


preferred a pure and simple acceptance; that’s 
all.” 

Thereupon, after the usual courtesies, he drew 
Maurice away, who, after thrusting with some 
difficulty his unfortunate roll of papers into the 
deepest pocket of his overcoat, followed his pro- 
tector, asking himself how it happened that, in an 
Institution where they profess to speak the French 
language — which is the language of clearness and 
precision par excellence — better than anywhere in 
France, they had finally succeeded in giving to the 
words “ I accept ” the sense of “ I refuse,” and in 
saying “ yes ” when they meant “ no.” 

“Come,” said Yilfrid to his companion, while 
passing through the garden of the Palais Royal, 
“put away that bewildered air. To be refused by 
the Comedie Fra^aise is not among the things that 
kill. If that were the case, our greatest dramatic 
geniuses would have all been buried at thirty years 
of age. We will try elsewhere.” 

Thereupon he took him to a theatre, which now 
no longer exists, but where once upon a time, and 
even at that very period, charming comedies were 
played. From the moment he had sent in his name 
to the manager, the latter called him at once in his 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


171 


private room, and amiably asked, but not without a 
certain affectation of importance and superiority 
which struck Maurice, what good wind had brought 
him there. 

“ A good wind, indeed,” replied Yilf rid, “and one 
which does not blow every day — a good piece.” 

“ One of yours ? ” inquired the director, smiling 
somewhat maliciously through the imposing majesty 
of his attitude. 

“Oh, no! don’t be alarmed; not one of mine; 
but a friend’s, whose talent I should like much to 
possess.” 

“His name?” 

“His name is Maurice Yemier; as to the man, 
here he is.” 

At a sign from the vaudevillist, Maurice, quite 
confused, drew the manuscript from his pocket, and 
handed it to the director. 

At the name of Maurice Yernier the latter put 
on a thoughtful air, as if he sought to remember 
something; then, finding that his memory did not 
serve him, and that the young author was entirely 
unknown to him : 

“I will read, sir,” said he, “your work with 
attention; but Monsieur Yilf rid Daroux can tell 


172 


TWENTY YEARS Itf PARIS. 


you to wliat extent we are encumbered with plays 
of every description. There, look at that bundle of 
papers!” and he pointed to an enormous heap of 
manuscripts lying on the table. “ And that is not 
all ; look here ! ” and he opened a closet filled with 
green, blue, yellow, and red covers, which, un- 
doubtedly, to the minds of their authors represented 
as many masterpieces. 

Maurice contemplated this mountain of dramas, 
comedies, and vaudevilles with stupor. 

“ You may be obliged, perhaps,” continued the 
manager, who gradually straightened himself up in 
his cravat, “ to wait a short time the result of my 
examination. At all events you can count on my sin- 
cere desire to find your piece worthy of my theatre. 
Why! my dear sir! whatever may be said to the 
contrary, is it not our object to find good works, 
as well as it is our business to seek them ? When 
a rare bird falls into our hands, you may well be- 
lieve we are not foolish enough to let it fly away.” 

Our two friends would have felt a delicacy to 
infringe any longer upon a time so valuable. They 
took leave of the impressario, who, with a protecting 
air, conducted them to the door, after having ar- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


173 


ranged for them to return in three weeks to receive 
his answer. 

During the course of this visit, Maurice had had 
the time to examine the personage to whom he was 
introduced by Vilfrid Daroux. Tall and clumsily- 
formed, yet young-looking in spite of his sixty 
years, his hair, as black as a raven, betrayed, by its 
uncommon lustre and perfume, the use of most 
violent cosmetics. A heavy golden chain dangled 
on a vest of embossed velvet — the only fault in a 
toilet otherwise as correct as that of an attorney- 
general. He carried his head erect, as a man who 
knows his own worth, and weighed his words like 
one who knows their value. Magnificent in his 
gestures, he was not less imposing in his bearing. 
In spite of his gravity, however, he occasionally 
indulged in little witticisms, and then you should 
have heard all those who came under his direction, 
authors as well as actors, express their delight by 
laughter and applause! After all, is not he the 
greatest wit who holds the key of the money- 
drawer % 

Viewed in various ways, some called him proud 
as a peacock; others found him as solemn as a 
goose. In regard to his origin, opinion was still 


174 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


more diversified. Some made him out, in times long 
gone by, the author of a third part of a vaudeville 
which was hissed at the Houveautes ; others again 
affirmed that in his youth he had tried to become 
a star actor, but failed. On one point alone they 
all agreed, which was, that this ex-beau of gallant 
fame owed his exalted position to the tender protec- 
tion of a rich old lady, whose age was as respectable 
as her heart was foolish and generous. 

Maurice, who was accustomed to the simplicity of 
a world in which he had always lived, could not 
submit to the manners of this used-up old sultan. 
He went away from the theatre fully persuaded 
that he must have left, by an unavoidable reciprocity, 
a rather unfavorable impression on the mind of this 
majestic director, and feeling very uncomfortable at 
the idea that he might yet be subjected, before fac- 
ing the public, to many impertinent rebuffs from 
this inflated old pedagogue. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


175 


XT. 

While waiting the good pleasure of the lord and 
master, who showed himself in no way eager to re- 
ply, Maurice went the rounds of all the theatres in 
order to watch the success of pieces played for the 
first time, thinking that from theif fate he might in 
a measure be able to anticipate the destiny of his 
own. Almost on every occasion he noticed a cir- 
cumstance which at once alarmed and disgusted 
him; hardly ever on the evening of a first per- 
formance the curtain rose before an independent 
audience. Many of the plays he saw were good, 
the style and acting excellent; the plot, which was 
original and sensible, pleased and interested him; 
and yet it often happened that in the midst of 
a cold and silent audience, he could not find in 
the course of the entire evening a single chance 
to express by applause his esteem and sympathy 
for the author and his work, without making him- 
self conspicuous. 

At other times, on the contrary, he was scarcely 
seated, when he was bewildered by acclamations and 


176 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS, 


the stamping of feet which greeted, nay, forestalled 
the most commonplace remarks and the most vul- 
gar replies. As soon as- the curtain rose, a round of 
violent and prolonged applause was given for the 
decorations. If a new actor appeared upon the 
stage : “ Good ! good ! ” roared some deep, sonorous 
voices from the farther end of the house. If an 
actress set forth with apparent naivete, some equiv- 
ocal speeches that would have made a guardsman 
blush : “ Oh ! oh ! oh ! how lovely ! how divine ! 
how witty ? ” murmured some young ladies in their 
boxes, with the affected emotion of little kids. In 
the orchestra chairs he frequently saw with stupe- 
faction great burly fellows, built like some show- 
hercules, overcome at every word like little turtle 
doves. There were many who seemed neither to see 
nor to hear, but who were only there for the express 
purpose of applauding with all their might on every 
occasion, and to find fault with any one who did not 
appear to share their fanaticism. The reporters 
seemed at first astonished at this uproar, but they 
gradually became reconciled. Enthusiasm is con- 
tagious ; and without knowing why, or without giv- 
ing it even a thought, they soon did like the others. 
When one sheep jumps, the whole flock usually fol- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


177 


lows. The authors who were present, stupefied and 
bewildered, but fearing above all to be considered 
spiteful and invidious, did like the rest, howled with 
the wolves and finally applauded even loader than 
those hired for the purpose. In the midst of this 
tumult, the piece reached the end, when a regular 
thunder of yells, clapping of hands, striking of canes, 
and stamping of feet, greeted through a cloud of 
suffocating dust the name and, too often, the person 
of the author. 

Irritated and disgusted with these exhibitions, 
Maurice concluded that he would no longer witness 
scenes which were invariably gotten up at every first 
performance to secure the success of the play ; still 
it did not alter his intention to write for the theatre, 
which from having been his favorite amusement had 
now become his chosen occupation. 

One evening, at the Gymnase, chance placed 
him by the side of a man he had formerly known, 
and for whom he had always retained an affection- 
ate remembrance, although he had lost sight of him 

for quite a long time. M enjoyed, in spite of 

his youth, a great reputation in the political world. 
He had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies 

for seven years. Seated on the benches of the oppo- 
8 * 


178 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


sition, which at any moment might, at .this particular 
period, come into power, he had distinguished him- 
self by several brilliant speeches. Without too 

great a contrast, M united the elegant manners 

of a man of pleasure to the serious and thoughtful air 
of a man of study. His conversation, which was by 
turns witty and brilliant, or reserved and sensible, 
at once revealed his character. He combined the 
artist with the diplomatist — two natures much more 
alike than is generally admitted by those who are 
themselves neither diplomatists nor artists. His 
greatest weakness was perhaps a little too much pre- 
occupation and thought of himself, of his success, 
of the effect to be produced — a little too much desire 
to shine and to please. It was easy to see that he 
always had an eye to his person, his language, and 
his attitude. Considered by the Chamber as one of 
its most eloquent orators, hoping to become one of 
its representatives in the king’s council, surrounded 
by all the seductions which attend success and 
power — even the shadow of power, raised above 
the masses by the very votes of the masses, he liked 
to show that he knew his own worth; and while 
affable and cordial towards all those who approached 
him, lie knew how to keep at a distance those treach- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


179 


erous familiarities which always end by lessening 
one’s self esteem, or by placing impediments in the 
way of ambition. 

“My dear Maurice,” he said, holding out his 
hand, “ it is a long time since I have had the pleas- 
ure of seeing you in the world. Have you re- 
nounced its follies ? ” 

“ I cannot say I have, only at present they are of 
a different nature, and at this very place where 
you come for pleasure only, I am somewhat on 
business.” 

“ What ! have you taken up play- writing ? ” 

“ I am trying my hand at it.” 

Thus they passed the evening together, exchang- 
ing their opinion on the merits of the play. The 
young legislator astonished his neighbor by the 
nicety of his remarks, by his exquisite taste for 
everything which concerned the scene, and for his 
rare knowledge of dramatic literature and its au- 
thors. After the piece, he offered Maurice a seat in 
his carriage. 

“ I sincerely hope,” he said on parting, “ that our 
relations, now that we have renewed our old ac- 
quaintance, will not end here. You have spoken to 
me of a play of yours,” added he, in a friendly 


180 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


manner ; “ I wish you would come and read it tc 
me to-morrow. Who knows but I may have it in 
my power to be useful to you. Even Moliere con- 
sulted his servant woman.” . . . 

The next day, after hearing the piece, which 

Maurice read to him, M could not find words 

enough of praise for the style, arrangement, and in- 
terest that were displayed in it. 

“ Do you think it could be performed ? ” timidly 
inquired the author. 

“ It is worthy of it. Still that is not always a 
reason. . . . But, however,” he continued, with an 
air of authority which struck Maurice, “ count on 
my sympathy, and if needs be, on my support.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS, 


181 


XVI. 

After numerous and unsuccessful visits, aftei 
many indefatigable efforts, Maurice at last received 
from the impressario, with whom he had left his 
manuscript, the following letter : 

“ Sir : From the report which I have received from my read- 
ers, as well as from a personal perusal of your work, I am con- 
firmed in the opinion that your piece offers but little chance of 
success at my theatre. The truth is, the arrangement of the 
parts is well enough, but it lacks interest and life. The plot, 
besides, is not entirely new, and you can well understand that 
the director of a theatre, such as I have the honor to preside 
over, cannot there present new editions, however improved, of 
a subject which has already been hackneyed in second-rate thea- 
tres. What is postponed, however,* is not lost. Bring me some- 
thing that has nothing in common with what we have seen yet, 
a play in which I find wit, sentiment, high tone, grace, style — 
with some pretext for fine decorations, and for the exhibition of 
the pretty women, who are the ornament of my troupe and the 
delight of the public, and I shall be happy to reply, not by re- 
turning you, as this time, your manuscript, but by sending you 
an order for rehearsal. With many regrets, 

“ I have the honor to be, etc., etc.” 

“ So much for number two ! ” said Maurice, after 
reading the epistle. 

“ Confound the fellow ! but I will not give it up,” 
exclaimed Vilfrid, “ How, a piece that I have liked 


182 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


so much should not please that jackass ! I would 
swear that he has not had for one good while any- 
thing at his theatre which equals your drama, with- 
out excepting even my own lucubrations. After 
this we will resort to stratagem.” 

And without waiting to hear more, he handed 
Maurice his hat, gloves, and manuscript, and took, 
or rather dragged him to another manager. 

This man’s name was Magalou ; he was from Au- 
vergne. Formerly a clock-maker at Saint-Flour, 
by what strange concatenation of circumstances had 
he become the manager of a theatre in Paris? Cer- 
tainly it was sufficient to see or to hear him only for 
two minutes, to be perfectly persuaded that he was 
not indebted for his place to the caprice of any 
old dowager. Coarse in his language, vulgar in 
appearance, he blended in a happy mixture the 
grace of a water-carrier, with the accent of an 
itinerant pot and kettle mender. He had the 
broad accent of Auvergne ; his “ services ” were all 
“ chervishes,” his “ excellents ” were “ ecchelents.” 
His appointment was one of those facts that we are 
obliged to accept without requiring an explanation, 
more than of any other mystery. 

“ Eh ! eh ! here you are, my boy,” he said to Yil- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


133 


f rid. Good-natured, or at least apparently so, lie in- 
discriminately patronized all the authors and come- 
dians, never calling his artists by any other name 
than his “ dear children,” and his theatre his “ dear 
family.” “ Upon my soul, your visits are getting 
rare.” 

“ And I am sorry to say that this one is prompted 
by interest, ‘ father Magalou.’ ” “ Father Magalou ” 
was the most agreeable epithet to his ear, and Vil- 
frid reserved that civility for great occasions. 

“ Well, my boy, what can I do for you ; what is 
it?” 

“ A piece, that is what it is, my venerable mas- 
ter; and such a piece! You will send the Vau- 
deville and Gymnase to the other end of the 
earth in a single jump.” 

“ Of yours ? ” 

“Of mine, in connection with Mr. Maurice Ver- 
nier here.” 

“ Very well ; I will look at it, I will look at it.” 

Vilfrid handed him the manuscript. 

“What day must I come for an answer?” 

“ To-morrow, of course, to-morrow.” 

The next day Vilfrid presented himself at the 
theatre, accompanied by Maurice. 


184 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


“Well,” said he to Magalou, “did you read the 
manuscript ? ” 

“I did.” 

“ What do you think of it ? ” 

“I think it is perfect — it is superb ! Your roll of 
paper, I tell you, Yilfrid Daroux, is a sausage of 
gold!” 

“Then, when shall we have the rehearsals?” 

“ Eight away, my boy, right away.” 

“ Shall we at once attend to the distributions?” 

“ Take your choice from my troupe ; it is all at 
your service.” 

“ Oh ! that will not take long; in the whole piece 
there is but one part that may be a little difficult, 
perhaps, that of the ‘ father.’ That requires some 
sentiment and spirit.” 

“The father?” stammered Magalou, without 
being able to disguise a certain embarrassment. 

“ Yes ; the old gentleman so tenacious at heart to 
his nobiliary vanity, and outwardly so extremely 
liberal.” 

“Ah! ah! ah! just so; liberal, to be sure — liber- 
al,” repeated mechanically the manager, more and 
more confused, and endeavoring to smile without 
being able to bring it about. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


185 


“ Really ! what do you say of his part ? It is 
penned with a masterly hand, is it not ? ” 

“ Oh ! it is penned with a masterly hand,” replied 
Magalou, who evidently did not understand a word 
of what Vilfrid was driving at. 

“ And what a power of language ! ” 

“ Power of language, indeed ! ” 

“ Well and good ! I see that you appreciate 
the qualities of the piece, and that you count on a 
success. Henceforth, then, all deception is useless. 
Off with the masks ! ” 

“ Deception ? ” snorted Magalou, fixing on his 
interlocutor a bewildered look. 

“ I have had nothing to do with the work, and to 
Mr. Maurice Vernier alone belongs all the credit.” 

“ What ! you are not the author 1 ” exclaimed the 
manager bounding from his seat ; “ you are not the 
author ? why, then you are a scamp ! then I will not 
receive the piece, because you have deceived me. 
Yes: where there is fraud in the sale of merchan- 
dise, the bargain is void ; that is the law.” 

“ With your permission. There has been no 
fraud. If the piece is good, of what consequence is 
the author ? ” 


186 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


“ Upon my soul ! a good deal of consequence, on 
the contrary ! ” 

“ Besides, you have accepted after reading it.” 

“Reading it? no; by thunder, no! I have not 
read the first word of it ! Do you think by chance 
that I have time to read plays ? Why not at once 
learn them by heart, and act them too ? You told 
me that it was yours, and I have taken it in confi- 
dence. And now I find that it comes from a per- 
son whom I never heard of. It is a fraud ; there is 
no other word for it ; the bargain is broken.” 

I leave you to imagine the cruel embarrassment 
of Maurice during this scene. 

“ Well, don’t get so excited,” gayly replied Vil- 
frid. “ The author is not a man who will visit upon 
you the fullest extent of the law. You are free ; 
only I insist that you make a mistake in giving 
back the manuscript ; and, since you have not yet 
read it, I advise you to do so.” 

Thereupon he went out, refusing to take the roll 
which the confused and irritated Magalou tendered 
him with a supplicating hand. 

“The poor fool!” said Yilfrid, in a burst of 
laughter. “I have been told that he plays his 
pieces without even looking at them, and that he 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


187 


takes them from the heap just as they come ; but 
who knows ? that may not be such a bad plan after 
all. Chance is oftentimes more intelligent than 
an old imbecile ; and, besides, the managers, even 
the most sensible, wearied and worn out as they are 
by innumerable and fastidious readings, can they, 
out of the midst of chaosAvhich must finally become 
the condition of their brains, always distinguish the 
bad from the middling, and the good from the bad ; 
and are they not compelled to base their calcula- 
tions on the name of the author rather than on the 
merit of the work ? Anyhow, don’t be discouraged 
yet. It is a maxim among us that the pieces which 
are blackballed at first are the most successful in the 
end. As regards that matter, the history of the 
great successes for the last few years could be made 
the subject of an interesting study, and I am only 
surprised that none of our papers has yet thought of 
it.” 

Maurice began to make some serious reflections. 
In the artless enthusiasm of a poet he had dreamed 
of nothing but glory and renown ; but after barely 
passing the threshold of the theatre, he commenced 
already to wonder whether it was on the stage alone 
that the decorations were of pasteboard, and whether 


188 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


dramatic art had not nowadays better be called 
dramatic business. 

Naturally, the first thing he did was to go and 
tell his friend M of his new tribulations. 

“ How ! you are astonished,” smilingly replied the 
latter, “ and you think of writing ! I, myself, have 
always thought that the celebrated saying of Beau- 
marchais — ‘Skill is better than knowledge’ — was 
suggested to him by some piece of his, that wanted 
some especial nursing. Gird yourself, then, with 
the triple armor of the Latin poet ; learn to flatter 
ministers and comedians, and to beg the support of 
newspapers ; to humiliate yourself before the mana- 
gers, especially if you prefer success of money to 
that of esteem, popularity to consideration, and a 
red ribbon solicited with a head bowed to the 
ground, to that invisible decoration, but revered by 
all, which is called public esteem. I hope, though, 
that your character will never stoop to such tri- 
umphs, and that you have enough pride in your heart 
to despise vanity. Whatever may be the result, I 
find your drama excellent ; it deserves to be per- 
formed, and performed it shall be. Return in three 
days to your manager, and I will engage that your 
reception will be satisfactory. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


189 


After three days Maurice called upon Magalou. 
Scarcely had he sent in his card, than the latter 
appeared instantly at the door of his office, and 
extended his hand to the young author with an 
eagerness which almost resembled obsequiousness. 

“ Come in, come in, my dear Mr. Maurice,” said 
he. “ I have been very impatient to see you to tell 
you how very anxious I am to play your piece.” 

“ Then you have read it,” exclaimed Maurice, with 
delight. 

“ Oh ! it is superb, it is amusing, most interesting; 
what a success ! ” 

“ I thank you, sir, for your great kindness.” 

“Kindness? No, it is justice. Am I not the 
father of the authors, as well as of the comedians in 
general, and all the artists in particular ? ” 

Maurice understood all. M was a member 

of the committee on theatres, and had converted by 
one word the old clock-maker of Saint-Flour, who 
was all the more open to conversion, not having, as 
we have already seen, any literary opinion of his 
own. 


f 


190 


TWENTY YEARS TN TARTS. 


xvn. 

The report that a drama in five acts, written by 
an unknown person, had been accepted by Magalou, 
and was now under rehearsal, quickly spread among 
the alarmed writers for the theatre. The venera- 
ble prelate, who at that moment was negotiating for 
half a dozen of his best and newest pieces, waited 
with great anxiety for a chance to read them to the 
actors, so as to know exactly what to think of the 
amount of injury that this unforeseen competition 
was likely to inflict upon him. 

“ No harm done yet, gentlemen,” said he in the 
evening, as he entered, with a triumphant air, the 
cafe where his friends had congregated, “the actors 
are all dissatisfied ; several of them have even gone 
to Magalou to throw up their parts.” 

“ If he dies a millionaire, this Magalou,” said 
Perron, u I am willing to become a member of the 
French Academy. What an imbecile he must be, 
to go and dabble in new and unknown authors, 
when he knows that he has us at his disposal ! ” 

“ The truth is,” remarked Mengin, “ I would not 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


191 


care to live in liis cash box; I should feel too lonely 
there.” 

“Do you know the author?” inquired one of 
those present. 

“ Yfes,” replied another, “he was here one evening 
with Vilfrid Daroux. He is a nice, well-behaved 
young man ; but I defy him to get up, as we do, a 
play of five acts in five days.” 

“ And then,” interrupted a melancholy voice from 
beneath a seedy old hat, at the other end of the 
table, “ that man has not suffered yet ! Upon my 
word, what can one know of life and of the human 
heart, who has not been reduced to watch, towards 
six or half-past six in the evening, the route that 
your friend usually takes, in order to borrow a five- 
franc piece of him ? Before writing for the theatre, 
it is necessary to know the world ; and to know it 
well, my boys, one must have led for some time the 
life of a bohemian.” 

“Anyhow,” replied with unction the venerable 
prelate, “ we shall soon know. In a few days we will 
be able to judge of the dramatic talent of the 
author, and the administrative intelligence of the 
manager. Let us reserve our opinion until then, 
and above all, let us show by the kind reception 


192 


T W ENTY YEARS IN PARTS. 


that we give to a new brother, what a fraternity 
there is among men of letters ! ” 

In spite of the wisdom of this advice, the vener- 
able prelate was seen, during the following days, rov- 
ing with a mysterious air through the passage-ways 
of Magalou’s theatre, having an ear to every rumor, 
listening with an assumed astonishment to the 
actors who appeared pleased with their parts, and 
with marks of sympathy and compassion to those 
who appeared discontented ; shrugging his shoulders 
with an air of secret acquiescence when they spoke 
before him of Magalou’s utter want of ability, and 
smiling with the silent sarcasm of an old diplo- 
matist every time the conversation in the green- 
room turned upon the brilliant talent of young 
Yernier. 

Meanwhile Maurice commenced to notice around 
him the first symptoms of opposition. His piece, at 
first so much admired, seemed to grow less from 
hour to hour in the estimation of its interpreters, 
without his being able to account for this sudden 
depreciation. 

Still lie had now gone too far to give it up, and 
so after the usual number of rehearsals, the great 
day finally arrived. All the hesitations, all the 


TWENTY YEAKS IN PAEIS. 


193 


doubts, all the internal struggles which had pre- 
ceded the decisive moment, were known to the 
theatre world, where the piece had been condemned 
in advance ; and already an ominous impression had 
found its way even among the public. Notwith- 
standing, the house at an early hour was filled to 
overflowing. All Maurice’s friends had naturally 
come to enjoy the fete. He himself, very much ex- 
cited, thought of Iolande, and dreading above 
everything a failure, which would render him for- 
ever ridiculous in the eyes of the Marquis de Mau- 
vezin and his young wife, he inwardly regretted 
having ventured on an experiment of which he now 
only saw the dangers, in the same way as at first he 
had merely considered its advantages. 

At last the curtain rose. During the opening 
scenes, the public appeared to listen with consider- 
able curiosity. The first act seemed to please, but 
one would have said that the audience, in spite of 
their wish to do so, dared not applaud. At the sec- 
ond and third act the house commenced to assume 
quite a different aspect. The loudly-expressed satis- 
faction of a number of the best writers and critics 
encouraged some timid sympathies ; a murmur of ap- 
probation succeeded the funereal silence of the first 
9 


194 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


act, and a few spectators began to clap their hands. 
But the fifth act decided the success. The public, 
after a painful resistance, yielded at last to their 
feelings, and at the end of the piece lavished upon 
the author thunders of applause and acclamations. 
Vilfrid went over to congratulate his friend. 

Some journalists, M and several renowned 

dramatic authors followed to the green-room to 
compliment him on the happy result. It was but 
too evident that if the piece had not been killed, 
so to speak, before its birth, it would have proved 
a paying success. 

On the whole, while his play did not absolutely 
fill Magalou’s money box, it certainly drew the pub- 
lic, and Maurice had the right to congratulate him- 
self on the satisfactory issue of the attempt. Never- 
theless he ceased to see dramatic literature in the 
same light as formerly ; the reflections of Vilfrid, 
his scepticism, and his disdain of art were now ex- 
plained to him. He began to understand that at- 
tempting to struggle against the public taste is 
simply a childish folly, and that what cannot be 
cured must only be endured. More than ever an 
enthusiast in dramatic art — the most noble of arts, 
he said ; more than ever disgusted with dramatic 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


195 


trade— the most miserable of all trades, added he ; 
prevented by circumstances from indulging in the 
former, and very firmly resolved 4 not to engage 
in the latter, he was satisfied with having gained 
his point in the eyes of an enlightened public, and 
he felt he could withdraw with honor from the 
battle-field. The result was sufficient to satisfy his 
pride, and so he went to see his protector to acquaint 
him with his determination. 

“ You will at least render me this justice,” said the 
latter, in reply to Maurice’s grievances, “ that I have 
done nothing to keep you from your enterprise, and 
yet I foresaw the result. Like you, have I not also 
wished in former times to try my fortune at play- 
writing ? Ah me ! yes ; I have also had ray first per- 
formance. Unfortunately though, instead of com- 
ing off victorious, I only made a dreadful fail- 
ure. My dramatic misfortune was one of the 
sins of my youth, which I don’t like much to re- 
member, although the penny papers take great pleas- 
ure in reminding me of it every time I venture to 
speak at the Chamber ; my friendship for you en- 
titles you to this confession. That evening has 
proved the most painful accident and at the same 
time the most happy event in my life. What would 


196 


TWENTY YEARS’ IN PARIS. 


have become of me if I had succeeded ? Without 
any doubt a poor third-rate author, spending his time 
in carrying from one theatre to another all over Paris 
his unsuccessful manuscripts. My failure opened 
my eyes. I began to see that life depends upon the 
direction we give to it. It often requires more merit 
and labor to reach a mere mediocrity than to as- 
cend the highest summits. If Talleyrand had been 
a dramatic author, he would never have been more 
than a witty writer; with a little good luck he 
would probably have made his six thousand francs a 
year, and would have ended his days angling on the 
banks of the Marne. How many vaudevillists I 
have known who, in order to bring out three poor 
miserable acts on the stage, have displayed as much 
cunning, activity, and suppleness as our great diplo- 
matist has done during the most difficult circum- 
stances of his life! There are five or six in the 
Chamber who are dramatic failures, like me, and 
who, like me, have reached, or are on the point of 
reaching, the most exalted positions. You have 
come ofi better than I; why should you not be 
also more successful than I on other scenes ? You 
have still another advantage over me. I presented 
piyself in the political arena alone, without friends. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


197 


without any support. Now you must be aware that 
my influence is at your service as well as my friend- 
ship. The assistance which I have rendered you 
with the manager of a theatre, be sure, I shall be 
more happy yet to offer you with my most influential 
friends and with the most popular papers of my 
party.” 

Three days after, M introduced his protege to 

the chief editor of a paper which defended the in- 
terests of a party of which he was himself one of the 
most distinguished leaders. Maurice’s situation was 
a difficult one. 

They still remembered in the Parisian press the 
royalist ideas which he formerly supported. With- 
out changing too suddenly the tenor of his articles, 
he knew, with a perfect tact, gradually how to steer 
in a new direction. From a Jacobite, as he was, he 
became a tory. His appearance in the press, more- 
over, was only of short duration. It lasted just long 
enough to enable him to feel those secret sufferings 
of conscience and honor, which every man of heart 
experiences, when, in order to pursue the business 
of a journalist, he is obliged to obey a party order, 
and to flatter that party in its most contracted, 
unjust, and exaggerated views. 


198 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


Six months after, a vote of the Chamber brought 
the friends of M into power, and the king ap- 

pointed the latter Minister of the Interior. The 
next day a decree appeared which appointed Mr. 
Maurice Yernier chef de cabinet to the Minister 
of the Interior. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


199 


xvm. 

The first time he went out, the young chef de 
cabinet was greeted with such smiles and salutes as, 
until then, he had never any idea of. Those who 
formerly gave him a commonplace nod of the head, 
or waved him a good-morning at the end of their 
fingers, now, when he met them, manifested a violent 
desire to approach, moderated by the fear of impor- 
tuning him. He had never suspected all the flatteries, 
all the caresses, and all the supplications which can 
be expressed by a simple touch of the hat. Visitors 
flowed into his office. Everybody he had ever 
known contrived the most impossible pretexts to 
come and offer him their congratulations. He had 
not been installed eight days, when the usher 
handed him the card of Desjardins, and announced 
that the latter solicited an audience. 

“ Tell him to walk in,” said Maurice, curious to 
know what he could want of him, this good comrade 
who had manifested so little disposition to show 
himself a friend. 

The venerable prelate entered in a grave and 


200 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


composed manner. At a sign from Maurice he 
took a chair, and seated himself near him. 

“ Sir,” he said, with the sweetness of honey in 
his voice and smile, “ I have been very impatient to 
present my compliments to an old brother artist. 
Allow me also to add my thanks for your hearty 
reception. I hope it may prove the prelude to 
some higher favor.” 

“ Favor % ” inquired Maurice with astonishment. 
c Yes, sir. Excuse my frankness ; with a man of 
your mind I always go straight to the point. You 
probably are aware that in preparing the lists which 
are presented each year for the signature of the 
king, the day preceding his birthday, the last 
Minister of the Interior deigned to give my name 
some consideration.” .... 

Here the venerable prelate stopped as if he expe- 
rienced an invincible embarrassment in finding the 
proper words for the expression of his thoughts. 

“ Explain yourself, I beg of you,” remarked the 
chef de cabinet. 

“ Must I tell you ? ” replied Desjardins, mincing 
like an old coquette, and fumbling with his left 
hand in his button-hole, on which he cast at the 
same time a furtive glance; “ and can’t you guess ? ” 


TWENTY YE AES IN PAKI8. 


201 


“ Oli ! yes, yes ; I guess,” said Maurice, repressing 
a smile. 

“ My name,” remarked the vaudevillist, “ appeared 
last year in the second category. And, therefore, I 
had reason to suppose that this year it would head 
the list.” 

“We have not yet turned our attention to this 
matter,” replied Vernier. “But when we do, be 
assured that I shall examine all your titles with the 
greatest care.” 

“I have the right to assert,” continued Desjardins, 
“ that none of my brother artists can set forth the 
same claims to consideration. Vilfrid Daroux, my 
most redoubtable competitor, has only produced 
about one hundred and twenty works, while I, sir — • 
I can prove it by the agents’ registers — I have 
handed in to different theatres two hundred and 
twenty-three pieces. Besides, my name always occurs 
first in my pieces written in connection with others. 
Now you are probably aware that the cross is always 
given to the partner whose name figures first in the 
firm. And by so doing, it is the house that is hon- 
ored. Therefore . . . .” 

“ Permit me, sir,” hastily interrupted Maurice, 
smiling, “ not to accept the entire analogy. A literary 


202 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


collaboration bears but a very remote comparison, in 
my eye, to a manufactory of stockings or silks. The 
minister who accords the recompense is the only 
judge of the merit, and his choice in a mere ques- 
tion of taste and quality cannot be trammelled by 
considerations of seniority and quantity.” 

“ I hope, sir,” replied the vaudevillist, with a dash 
of vinegar in his honey, “ you do not mean to insin- 
uate that my works have no other quality than their 
quantity.” 

“ Heaven forbid that I should pretend to question 
your merits ? I beg of you not to take personally 
a mere expression of principles. If I had wished 
to bring the discussion on personal grounds, there is 
a name you have already pronounced yourself, and 
which I would have thought of in the first instance.” 

“That of Yilfrid Daroux, I presume. I know 
you honor him with your esteem.” 

“ What is that you say 1 ” gayly exclaimed Mau- 
rice. “ My friendship does not honor him the least 
in the world : I am his friend, and he is mine ; that 
is all there is about it. But certainly my affection 
for him will never go so far as to make me unjust 
towards you. Meanwhile,” added he, smiling with an 
expression of true good humor, “ I do not conceal 


TWENTY YeAES IN EAEIS. 


203 


from you the fact that in case of equal merit, the 
esteem you allude to might very possibly cause the 
scales to weigh in his favor. You do not dispute 
his talent, I suppose, since you have so often deigned 
to associate it with your own. Well, then, what 
I appreciate in him above all is still less his talent 
than the little he seems to think of it. The most 
precious quality of Vilfrid, in my eyes, is that 
charming modesty with which he smilingly acknowl- 
edges that his vaudevilles, his reviews, and his fairy 
plays do not amount to much, and have no other 
merit than to insure him his dinner each day, his 
little cup of coffee, a good bed, and whatever else ' 
he may like. Does he not show in this way that he 
is better than his works, and is not this complete 
absence of all literary vanity preferable to that 
perfect satisfaction with one’s self which generally 
proves that a person is pretty well played out, 
and, therefore, incapable of producing anything 
further that would entitle him to the high dis- 
tinction which you solicit? For these reasons, it 
seems to me, that a recompense granted to a man 
like Daroux is not only a favor, but an encourage- 
ment.” 

“I see, sir,” interrupted Desjardins, “ they have 


204 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


not deceived me, and that all your sympathies and 
preferences are, really, bestowed in advance upon 
my rival.” 

“ If I have sympathies, be sure,” replied Maurice 
with vivacity, “ I have no preferences. The titles, 
which I suppose you have set forth in your petition 
to the minister, I again repeat, will be looked into 
with care. As to my friendship for Yilfrid, it is m} 
duty here to state, that it cannot fail to have a certain 
weight in the appreciation of your relative merits 
He tendered me a friendly hand when others would 
have gladly seen me fail ; he has used his influence 
in my behalf at a time when certain unkindly-dis- 
posed persons rendered his support to me of the 
greatest value. Is it not just, now that the wheel of 
fortune has turned, that I show myself grateful for 
his kindness by a cordial reciprocity?” 

“ Most assuredly,” grumbled the venerable prelate, 
with a smile which did not indicate anything too 
venerable or pontifical ; “ it has been truly said, it is 
always dangerous to make enemies of persons smaller 
than ourselves.” 

Maurice fixed upon him a look which compelled 
him to lower his eyes. 

“ However that maybe, sir,” continued the prelate, 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


205 


keeping bis eyes down upon the ground, and with a 
marked intention of irony, “be well persuaded, 
whatever else they may have told you, I have in no 
way influenced the fate of your drama. The public 
must be pleased ; everything depends upon that, and 
it is public opinion alone, in spite of ministers, dep- 
uties, king, and chefs de cabinet themselves, which 
decides the question of success. As to the object of 
my visit, let us talk no more about it. It is the 
public, after all, who judges the acts of the min- 
ister ... as well as the works of the author.” 

Maurice rose with an air which indicated, “ you 
may leave the presence,” and the solemn Desjardins 
took leave, always with the same gravity, but with a 
confusion in his eye, a wavering in his gait, and a 
grimace in his smile, which betrayed the spite and 
disappointment of the dismissed solicitor. 

The first of May following the Moniteur an- 
nounced officially to the world, who cared but little 
for the detail, the promotion of Mr. Yilfrid Daroux, 
dramatic author, to the rank of Chevalier of the 
Legion of Honor. Maurice, after ascertaining that 
the two candidates had equal claims to the cross, 
since one deserved it no more than the other, had 


m 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


determined to bestow the decoration on his jolty 
comrade. 

This is the way things generally go — favors are 
always for friends or relatives. So much the worse 
for those who have only their talent to help them 
along ; they may wait I 


TWENTY Y EAR S IN PARIS, 


207 


XIX. 

Two or three days after the visit of the celebrated 
vaudevillist, there was another surprise for Maurice. 
The Count de Brugal was announced. 

“ Yes, my dear young friend, it is I,” said he, 
abruptly entering, and most cordially taking the hand 
of the chef de cabinet ; “ it is my very self. Since 
the Bevolution of July, I have never set my foot in 
this place, and it is only you who could again bring 
me here. Your people owe you something, I think, 
for this visit, which is only made on your account.” 

Maurice, stupefied, could not find a word to reply. 

“ True merit,” added the count, “ sooner or later 
makes its way. You have now attained one of those 
conspicuous positions, where it is easy for a man of 
talent to distinguish himself. In the name of our 
old friendship, I want to be one of the first to con- 
gratulate you.” 

“ I am profoundly grateful,” stammered Maurice, 
“ for this mark of kind remembrance. Be assured 
that I should have forestalled you, if I had dared tq 
renew relations so long since broken off,” 


208 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


“ Well ! ” gayly interrupted the count, “ I see with 
pleasure the past has left no bitterness between us. 
Why, my dear fellow, you know very well that 
neither myself, wife, or daughter, could have acted 
otherwise. It would be unjust to make us responsi- 
ble for a refusal that has caused us as much suffer- 
ing as it has you, and for which you must only hold 
society and its laws accountable. In spite of the 
apparent coldness that has existed since the delicate 
circumstances which have separated us, my friend- 
ship for you lias not, at heart, changed in the least, 
and I hope always to remain your best friend.” 

“You may counton my reciprocity,” replied Mau- 
rice, with a certain emotion, disarmed by the courte- 
ous forms of the count, and holding out his hand to 
him. 

“You know my liberalism, don’t you? Let an 
occasion present itself, and then you will see.” . . . 

At this well-known phrase, the young chef de 
cabinet looked down without breathing a word, and 
with some difficulty repressed a smile. 

“No one, you ought to know, is more anxious 
than I to bring about a speedy conciliation between 
the upper classes of society ; but why shall we be 
blind to the difficulties which stand in the way of 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


209 


this desirable union ? Yes, from a political aspect 
it is necessary, it is easy ; socially, or, if you please, 
from a worldly point of view, it is impossible. We 
cannot make up our minds so readily to give our 
daughters to the bourgeoisie, and we will but rarely 
have occasion to ask for theirs. Besides, who is 
there among us who would be willing to set the ex- 
ample ? What father would dare to be the first to 
brave the disguised sneers of our drawing-rooms 
and the epigrams of that society in the midst of 
which our children are destined to live % ” 

“ In that cas?,” replied Maurice, smiling, “permit 
me to doubt, my dear sir, the near success of your 
liberalism. The loyal and open practice of senti- 
ments of honorable equality, which I am persuaded 
is inherent in you all, would serve you better in 
this country, I believe, than all your fine speeches 
in honor of liberty.” 

“ No matter ! ” exclaimed the count. “ In spite of 
differences of opinion, two men of heart will always 
understand each other in France, and my visit to 
you proves my confidence in your loyalty. Shall I 
tell you, my dear friend, from the moment I heard of 
your appointment, my selfishness came out, together 
with my old friendship for you ? ‘ Yes,’ I said to 


210 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


myself, ‘ I will go and see him, and in spite of all 
that has passed between us, in spite of the painful 
circumstances which have so unfortunately inter- 
fered with our intimacy — what do I say ? — for the 
very reasons which have separated us, I will go 
to him ; it is he who shall be the protector of my 
son-in-law.’ ” 

“ I ? ” stammered Maurice, utterly astonished. 

“I know your influence with the minister. A 
few words skilfully dropped by you, a little man- 
agement, a little urging, will do the business. And 
my daughter will owe to you the advancement of 
her husband.” 

“The truth is,” replied Maurice, with emotion, 
“ there are some changes contemplated among the 
prefects. Be assured that the claims of the Marquis 
de Mauvezin will be looked into with all the consid- 
eration of which he is deserving, and with the sin- 
cere friendship that I have always felt for you.” 

“His claims?” inquired the Count de Brugal, 
with an astonished air. 

“ Certainly.” 

“ My dear Maurice,” said the count smiling, “ we 
do not quite understand each other, I am afraid. 
To obtain a promotion, which it would be impossi- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


211 


ble to refuse him, my son-in-law most certainly 
would require neither your intervention nor mine. 
What I expect of you would be a little ... a very 
little favor. You know how that is done, without 
any noise, a word dropped in a quiet way.” . . . 

“ It will be sufficient, I am sure, for M. de Mau- 
vezin,” replied Maurice, “ that justice be rendered 
to his merit.” 

M. de Brugal gave a sly look at his interlocutor. 
“ Is he making fun of me f ” he thought to himself. 

“ Ho,” he replied, on recovering his former confi- 
dence ; “ we do not understand each other, I see it 
well. It is customary, my dear friend, while taking 
into account the personal merit of a candidate, to 
take into consideration also his birth, his family, 
his social relations, and finally, the quality of his 
protectors. Government offices are now accessible 
to every one. Well, that is right enough ; I have 
nothing to say against it. It is the principle — the 
principle of ’89 — so much for the question of right. 
But now comes the choice .... and there I come 
in to solicit from you a little favor for my son-in- 
law. You are aware, I suppose, that whoever 
obliges one of us obliges all. Be sure that in our 


212 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


world every one will be thankful for courtesies ex- 
tended to any of its members.” 

“My greatest desire,” replied Maurice, a little 
annoyed by this persistence, “ is to be able, without 
injustice, to render to the marquis the service you 
expect of me, and I swear to you that I will act in 
regard to him as if he were my own brother. What 
can I do more ? ” 

“Well,” thought the count, taking leave of the 
chef de cabinet with a charming cordiality, “ my 
young friend, with all his scruples, is either a deep 
fellow, who seeks an occasion to revenge himself; 
or he is a stupid, who imagines that fine sentiments 
make fine administrators.” 

£‘ Well,” thought Maurice from his side, “ my no- 
ble friend will remember, I am very sure, my hesi- 
tation to grant him an unjust favor a longer time 
than he has remembered the eagerness of my father 
to render him a service.” 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


213 


XX. 

Everybody knows how varied are the duties of a 
chef de cabinet. The reading of the correspond- 
ence, the interviews granted to solicitors and public 
functionaries, the important and confidential exami- 
nation of numerous affairs, and the surveillance of 
persons employed in the office, absorb his days and 
sometimes even a portion of his nights. Living in 
the government building, in order to be near the 
minister, he is obliged to hold himself in readiness 
at all hours, at midnight as well as at six in the 
morning, in order to answer immediately the call of 
his chief. If the relations of respectful obedience 
from the subordinate to the superior mark the dis- 
tance which separates the minister from his secre- 
tary, their mutual reserve is necessarily modified by 
the intimacy which cannot fail to arise between two 
men so closely brought together. Does not the chef 
de cabinet possess all the secrets of his superior? 
Does he not see him in the morning, in his robe de 
chambre , at breakfast, sipping his coffee like any 
Other mortal ? By the multiplicity and assiduity of 


214 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


their relations, does he not penetrate into the most 
intimate life of the secretary of state, over whom he 
exercises an influence equal to the confidence that 
the latter places in him \ Now, one can well un- 
derstand that this confidence must be unlimited. 

For the first time, .Maurice felt himself struggling 
hard with the duties of a position, the importance of 
which elevated him in his own estimation. From 
the high post he occupied, he embraced in one 
glance the entire political panorama of France. 
From the most remote quarters, all news centred in 
his cabinet ; no single thing occurred in any part of 
the territory of which the reflex was not immedi- 
ately felt on his desk. These labors exalted the 
more his imagination as, on entering upon the duties 
of his office with all the illusions of youth, he had 
exaggerated, perhaps, their importance, and taken 
too seriously certain details and certain prejudices 
which would have drawn at the utmost but a smile 
from old foxes in the business. It is thus, for exam- 
ple, that he placed conscience above personal inter- 
est, the spirit of impartiality in the distribution of 
offices above the intelligent calculations of favorit- 
ism ; justice, finally, and truth in the solution of all 
social or political questions above the considerations 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


215 


of office or dynasty. He did not believe that ambi- 
tion, spite, rancor, or vanity should ever exert any 
influence over the impassible mind of the statesman, 
and above all not over his protector, his minister, in 
his eyes the beau ideal of a statesman ! 

To speak the truth, M fully justified the de- 

voted affection of his secretary by his conduct to- 
wards him ; kind, affable, cordial, he had remained 
his friend while becoming his chief. Of a character 
extremely sympathetic, in the sense which the Ital- 
ians attached to the word simpatico , he was always 
the same amiable and simple man, with that slight 
affectation of haughtiness which is not disdain, but 
which excludes any importunate familiarity. As 
much as ever he liked luxury, the theatre, art, 
society, and did not resemble in any way those 
important politicians who seem to think that it is 
sufficient to be stupid in order to give themselves the 
appearance of thinking men, and who, either from 
disdain or because they are not clever enough, affect 
to remain strangers to the vivacity of the French 
mind and to the brilliant interchange of easy ideas. 
He would have conversed with you on the latest 
comedy, or the novel of the day, with as much in- 
terest as a newspaper critic. Meanwhile it was not 


216 TWENTY YEARS IN PARTS. 

in this kind of mental recreation alone that he 
sought relief from his labors. The society of ladies, 
above all, presented to his excellency the Minister 
of the Interior a rare and exquisite attraction. If 
in accepting the office of a minister he had imposed 
upon himself austere duties, it was no reason for him, 
he thought, to give up his social habits. Nay, what 
is more, had he not inwardly hoped, perhaps, that in 
consideration of these new duties he would be able 
to create new relations, and even to facilitate the 
enjoyment of them ? His life was thus divided be- 
tween the labors of his office and his successes in the 
drawing-room ; and Maurice, charmed with that ease 
of character, and with that suppleness of mind, felt 
his gratitude and enthusiasm increase every day 
more and more for the man who astonished him by 
such a happy blending of activity in study and ar- 
dor in pleasure. 

On one point, however, he could not help feeling 
a secret astonishment. It seemed to him that some 
change had come over the former opinions of his 
minister. Certain questions even received from the 
latter, in his circulars, a solution diametrically oppo- 
site from that which he had set forth in his speeches. 
Thus, having been charged to draw up a report rela- 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


2lV 


tive to the difficulty which had caused the fall of the 
late cabinet, Maurice had thought it necessary to 
draw his conclusion, as his chief had formerly done 
at the tribune, in a spirit of ultra-liberalism. The 
latter, after hurriedly examining the work of his 
secretary, cast on him a glance which denoted an 
extreme surprise. 

“ How is that ? ” he said. “ I have perhaps read 
too quickly, and not well understood your idea.” 

“ I have endeavored, sir, to set forth your opinions.” 

“ My opinions ? ” 

“ I have only transcribed in official language the 
eloquent discourse that you made last year at the 
Chamber.” 

“ At the Chamber ! ” exclaimed M , slightly 

annoyed. “ But, my dear sir, last year I was in the 
opposition, and this year- 1 am in power. At that 
rate the opposition in becoming the government 
would simply remain opposition, just like the con- 
spirator of the comedy, who from habit conspired 
in the end against himself.” 

This surprise was not for Maurice the only one of 
the same character. 

As an orator he had violently declaimed at the tri- 
bune against the English alliance, against its ruinous 
10 


218 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


exactions, and against the perpetual sacrifices of all 
kinds which it imposed upon France ; now that he 
was minister, he showed himself gentle as a lamb 
towards perfidious Albion. He had not a word to 
say against the exactions of England, but only spoke 
of the concessions which we should be ready to 
make in order to keep the good-will of this precious 
neighbor. 

“ The English alliance,” said he confidentially to 
Maurice, “ don’t you see, my dear sir, is a question 
of life or death, in France, for every new dynasty.” 

On the benches of the opposition he had loudly 
claimed for an electoral reform ; now that he was 
minister he proclaimed the excellence of the present 
system of taxation, exalted the good spirit of the 
electoral body, and authoritatively stated, in the midst 
of the applause of the members, that no combina- 
tion could give to the country a Chamber more inde- 
pendent, more disinterested, more enlightened, more 
patriotic, etc. 

“The electoral cense,” said he confidentially to 
Maurice, “ don’t you see, my dear sir, is a question of 
life or death for the ministerial majority at the next 
elections ! ” 

Formerly he had spoken with strong indignation 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


219 


against that constant increase of expenses, which 
necessarily leads to an increased taxation. To the 
orators who found fault with the new budget from 
its weighing too heavily upon the country, he replied 
that progress is not a vain word, and that, in virtue 
of the law of progress, a nation is all the richer for 
its government being placed in a position to spend 
money more liberally. 

“ The budget,” said he confidentially to Maurice, 
“ don’t you see, my dear fellow, is a question of life 
or death for our salaries.” 

On their side, the members of the late cabinet, 
who were now sitting on the benches of the opposi- 
tion, had taken up in support of their cause all the 
theories that the members of the former opposition, 
now that they were seated on the ministerial benches, 
had repudiated. It was always the same tune and 
the same concert. Only the musicians had changed 
instruments ; the big drum had taken up the clario- 
net, and the trombone now played the fiddle. 

What struck Maurice still more in the conduct 
of his protector was the personality which the lat- 
ter brought into the administration of public af- 
fairs. When an important law was presented to the 
chamber, it seemed to the conscientious chef de 


m 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


cabinet that M was more anxious as to the 

effect that his speech was going to produce than of 
the good which would result from the new measure. 
Before making his appearance in the assembly where 
he was to speak, he saw him carefully arranging his 
hair, faultlessly tying his cravat, and giving as 
much attention to his personal appearance as a com- 
edian who is about to appear upon the stage ; when 
the meeting was over, he saw him smiling, proud, and 
elated, as an actor after the final ovation. The fol- 
lowing day, when reading the papers, it was not the 
development of the question itself that drew the 
attention of the orator ; no, he went straight to the 
last paragraph — to the paragraph that speaks of the 
brilliancy of the delivery, the merit of the discourse, 
the applause of the public, the success of the comedy. 
Radiant, brilliant, he went, on those evenings, through 
the drawing-rooms of the great world, shaking hands 
with the pretty women, and returning with a trium- 
phant air the respectful courtesies addressed to him. 
His white cravat disappeared under the red cordon 
of the Legion of Honor ; he wore all his crosses, 
all his decorations studded with diamonds and 
resplendent in the light of the chandeliers. It 
could be plainly seen on these great occasions 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


221 


that the consequences of the measure he had just 
presented were the object that preoccupied him 
the least. An adversary who, while opposing his 
ideas, would find words to eulogize his talent, was 
sure, in spite of his negative vote, to be better re- 
ceived than he who voted on the right side, and 
lauded to the skies the merit of his views, without 
manifesting an equal enthusiasm for the genius of 
the orator. Around the eloquent minister was an 
atmosphere impregnated with seductions and charm- 
ing flatteries. The true statesman enjoys his success 
away from the noisy crowd — disdainful of renown, 
applause, and incense, with his eyes steadily fixed 
on the aim proposed, and on the future results of the 
measure which is about to be put into execution. 
But this is rarely the case ; almost always the exclu- 
sive and only object of the orator is the brilliant 
and immediate triumph of his language, the satis- 
faction of his vanity as an artist, and the confirma- 
tion of his popularity. 


222 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARTS, 


XXI. 

From the day that Maurice, to his great displeas- 
ure, had a glimpse of all these truths, his patriot- 
ism and his personal sentiments were necessarily at 
variance. Still his affection for his protector proved 
the strongest, and the latter could only congratulate 
himself upon the devoted co-operation of his secre- 
tary. It was even about this time that he gave 
him the most flattering proof of his confidence, by 
asking him for a confidential report on the subject 
of the promotion of prefects, soon to take place, 
which Maurice had alluded to in his interview with 
the Count de Brugal. According to his promise, the 
chef de cabinet looked over the records of the Mar- 
quis de Mauvezin before any others, having firmly 
resolved to warmly recommend the husband of 
Iolande to the minister as much as was in his power, 
without injury to other parties who were better en- 
titled than he. In vain he searched all the registers, 
looked over all the records, but felt compelled to 
admit that no good reasons could be advanced in be- 
half of his protege. The notes indicated an elegant 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


223 


man, giving excellent dinners, smoking excellent 
cigars, riding excellent horses, but destitute of all in- 
fluence over the public mind of his department, and, 
above all, as ignorant as a fish in all matters of ad- 
ministration. Maurice reluctantly acquitted himself 
of the unpleasant task, and handed in his report to 
the minister. 

“ How is this ? ” said M , casting a glance over 

the report ; “ I do not see here the name of the 
Marquis de Mauvezin.” 

“ His name is not there, sir.” 

“ But I thought there was some link of friendship 
between you and him, or at least with the family of 
the marchioness ? ” 

“ It is for this very reason, sir, I have endeavored 
to find some honest pretext which would enable me 
to present his name to you at the head of the list ; 
but I gave it up when I found that, by so doing, I 
should be guilty of a great injustice.” 

“ Pshaw ! look again,” replied the minister, throw- 
ing himself back in his arm-chair with a smile, 
which seemed to say : “ Seek and you shall find.” 

Maurice bowed and withdrew. 

“Well,” inquired his chief the next day, “my 


224 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


dear and conscientious secretary, have you at last 
found your protege worthy of my protection ? ” 

“ Well, sir,” replied Maurice, “ I have again con- 
sulted the records of the marquis, and after having 
examined the titles of his competitors, cannot pos- 
sibly recommend him to your preference, so flagrant 
would be the injustice ! ” 

“ Come,” replied the minister, smiling with a slight 
expression of spite and bad humor, “ I will have de- 
cidedly to do the thing myself in order to oblige 
you. Have the records of your friend brought and 
placed upon my desk.” 

Eight days after, the official list of the nomina- 
tions appeared in the Moniteur. At the head 
figured the Marquis de Mauvezin, who had been 
called from the smallest prefecture of our mountain 
frontiers, to the administration of one of the finest 
departments of Hormandy. Maurice, who, since 
the brief conversation that we have related, had not 
exchanged with the minister a single word in regard 
to the marquis, thought he saw in this favor, which 
was as unexpected as it was undeserved, a delicate 
attention of his chief — who had wished undoubtedly 
to spare him a painful capitulation of conscience, 
and at the same time to give him an opportunity 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


225 


to present to the Brugal family a most agreeable 
surprise. At the moment when in the joy of his 
heart, with a smile on his lips, he was going to find 
the minister, to express his thanks the door sud- 
denly opened, and a veiled lady passed out. Her 
eyes were cast down, her attitude was modest, and 
she appeared to make herself as compact as possible 
in order to remain unobserved. A chef de cabinet 
is accustomed to incidents of this nature, especially 
during those days which precede or follow great 
changes in the distribution of offices. Certain min- 
isters, as we know, are very fond of making changes 
of that kind. He accordingly passed on without 
raising his eyes, with the discreet reserve of a man 
of the world who knows his duty, and the serious 
gravity of the functionary who knows his business, 
when an involuntary movement of the beautiful un- 
known made him quickly turn his head. A surprise 
escaped his lips. It was Iolande ! If his eyes had 
not recognized her, would not his heart have dis- 
covered her beneath that veil of black lace which 
concealed her features ? 

Yes, it was Iolande, whom he had not seen for 
four years ; but in those four years, what changes 
had come over that face ; how different were now 

10 * 


226 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


her gait and her appearance! Those graceful 
forms, which were then only budding promises, had 
now developed into bewitching realities* The young 
girl had changed into the noble lady, unaffected, 
self-possessed, with a slight haughtiness, a shade of 
polite impertinence, and with that assurance of ges- 
ture and voice which invariably reveals a woman of 
the great world. Her features were those which re- 
quire, like certain flowers, to enter into full bloom 
to show themselves in all their splendor. Her beau- 
tiful black hair, raised in a graceful braid over her 
forehead, formed a most exquisite crown. If her 
image could no longer gild the dreams of an 
adolescent, and exalt by its beauty the heart of a 
novice, she now united in herself all the attractions 
capable of stirring the imagination of one of those 
exacting natures who are not satisfied with mere 
illusions, and who prefer positive reality to beauti- 
ful dreams.” 

In spite of the calm and modest appearance of 
the marchioness, the slightly heightened color of 
her face struck Maurice. Our old lover had too 
jealous an eye not to notice that the arrangement of 
her shawl had lost that elegant regularity which the 
maid knows so well how to give in the secret leisure 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARlt>. 


227 


of the dressing-room. The lips of the pretty mar- 
chioness expressed that vague and confused smile 
which Maurice did not interpret too favorably. Pale, 
without words, and trembling as if the fault was 
with him, he bowed and made a step towards her ; 
but the latter coldly noticed the bow, and taking 
him in with a disdainful look, appeared to think who 
that subaltern could be who showed himself so im- 
portunate with his respects, and passed on with in- 
difference. 

“Well,” said Maurice to himself, looking after 
her with a smile through which shone a tear, “I 
think the minister can very well dispense with my 
thanks : the injustice seems perfectly explained ; but 
is it thus that first loves always end?” .... 

A week had hardly passed away when the minis- 
ter sent for his chef de cabinet . The latter found 
him gravely seated before his desk covered with pa- 
pers, and in the attitude that a judge might assume 
towards a prisoner. 

“ My dear Maurice,” kindly remarked his excel- 
lency, “ I have requested you to come here for the 
purpose of speaking to you seriously. So listen to 
me ; I shall speak to you as a friend. I have never 
felt disposed until now to complain of certain imper* 


228 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


fections that to ray very great regret I have observed 
in your character. You are an intelligent man, 
without doubt, and in all questions of mere theory 
I would gladly take the advice of your knowledge 
and correct judgment. Unfortunately the position 
that you occupy is not, perhaps, the one that is en- 
tirely suited to you. The necessary quality in a chef 
de cabinet is, most of all, tact — let us say it — supple- 
ness ; in that you are utterly deficient. In adminis- 
trative matters you show yourself as strict and dog- 
matic as you would in a book or a lecture. Your 
unyielding character and the inflexibility of your 
principles are out of place, however, when the ques- 
tion is to steer clear of difficulties among so many 
contrary passions and diverse interests. The abso- 
lute is true in mathematics, and it is only true there. 
In practical life everything is relative, and it 
is the relative alone which governs the world. 
A government officer must know how to yield to 
circumstances, and even to obey them, in order to 
remain their master; above all must he avoid 
running rudely against them, for they would surely 
crush him. In every question it seems as if you do 
your utmost to propose impossible solutions — the 
very solutions that I proposed when I was in the 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


229 


opposition. In everything which relates to offices, 
your obstinacy does not take into account anything 
but merit, seniority, or brilliant actions, the same 
as in a regiment, bringing me into collision with 
powerful influences which can turn against me and 
upset the cabinet. Now, the existence of the cabi- 
net is the main interest of the country, since the re- 
pose, the grandeur, and the prosperity of the latter 
depend upon it. Consequently I have thought it 
my duty, my dear Maurice, to make a painful sacri- 
fice, and choose another chef de cabinet. Still, do 
not allow this to annoy you. Aside from this slight 
imperfection, I know too well your value not to turn 
your merits to account in the interest of the govern- 
ment. I have, therefore, reserved for you an impor- 
tant post, where your qualities will better shine forth, 
while your defects will be less apparent. A place 
of Referendary to the Council of State is vacant; 
do you want it ? ” 

From the first word Maurice knew where the 
blow came from. 

“ Sir,” replied he to his protector, mastering his 
emotion, “ I have conscientiously endeavored always 
to do my duty. The ideas that I yesterday found 
detestable I cannot to-day find excellent. I cannot, 


230 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


in order to please some of your friends or mine, 
allow them to ride over fifteen or twenty honorable 
men who are recommended by an extraordinary 
talent, and by eminent services ; in short, I cannot 
cheat my conscience. That is the reason you have 
not found in me that suppleness which in your eyes 
would be a quality, and wfiiich in mine would be a 
vice. Moreover, I should carry the same disposition 
of mind into any office where you might see fit to 
place me ; allow me, therefore, to decline the appoint- 
ment, and to prefer to the honors you offer an in- 
dependence, which will come very easy, considering 
the simplicity of my tastes, my love of liberty, and 
the modest income which I have the happiness to 
enjoy.” 

In spite of all the efforts of M to induce Mau- 

rice to change his resolution, the latter remained firm, 
and left, always apparently devoted and affectionate, 
but at heart cruelly wounded by his dismissal, and 
above all at the true cause of it. Being once more 
his own master, holding henceforth in equal aversion 
the two parties to which he had been alternately 
devoted, and of which the exacting vanities, whether 
personal vanities or vanities of caste, had by turns 
caused his heart to bleed, he asked himself in what 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


231 


pleasures he would be able henceforth to find forget- 
fulness and the repose necessary to his mind and 
heart. Light literature tempted him but little. Ac- 
customed as he had been to the management of 
serious matters and substantial interests, he could 
not make up his mind to engage for the rest of his 
days in writing scenes in which he had to sacrifice 
to the prurient taste of the public, by initiating them 
into the commonplace adventures of some Eulalie 
or Adelaide, some Auguste or Leonard, with their 
usual appendages of loves and crimes — thus poison- 
ing the minds of the readers of the circulating 
libraries, with which Paris and the rest of France 
are inundated. The thought had already come to 
him to turn his face sadly towards his former home, 
and to go back to his old father, when one morning 
his door suddenly opened, and Captain Edward Au- 
ger shot into his room, with as little ceremony as a 
cannon ball. 


232 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


XXU. 

“ Here lam!” exclaimed the impetuous captain, 
rushing towards him and pressing his hand with 
effusion. “You have acted like a man -of heart. 
I know all. It was time, believe me, to break off 
with the degrading despotism of that camarilla of 
shopkeepers.” 

“ How,” replied Maurice, smiling, “ is it you, a hero 
of July, who thus speaks of the government of 
July?” 

“ If you think that it is for these fellows that I 
fought on the barricades, you are much mistaken.” 

“ And for whom then, I beg of you ? ” 

“ For liberty.” 

“That’s so,” replied Maurice, smiling, “I for- 
got” . . . 

“ Come, complete your work ; imitate me.” 

“I, imitate youl .... And in what, if you 
please ? ” 

“In shouting with me ‘Vive la Reformer as 
I formerly shouted ‘ Vive la Charte ! ’ I have a 
friend who is the editor of the opposition paper 


TWENTY TEAKS ttf PARIS. 


233 


which has the largest circulation. Shall I introduce 
you ? ” 

“ What paper is it ? ” 

“ Le Patriote .” 

u Le Patriote f ” exclaimed Maurice ; u why that 
is a republican paper ! ” 

<k Well, what of it ? ” 

“ And do you go for the republic ? ” 

“ I want liberty. 

“ Wliat kind of liberty ? ” 

“ Why, the liberty of choosing myself the govern- 
ment which suits me best.” 

“ That is to say,” replied Maurice, “ to overthrow 
all the governments which displease you. Goodness ! 
my liberalism does not go so far as that.” 

“ Logic, young man, logic ! Having come back 
from your royalistic prejudices, you join the consti- 
tutional government. Right so. ‘ Yive la Charte ! ’ 
Convinced of the mistake of your parliamentary 
sympathies, you send in your resignation. Right so, 
again. 6 Yive la Reforme ! 9 How draw your own 
conclusions.” . . . 

Maurice, who had grown sour by so many decep- 
tions, inwardly commenced to ask himself if it was 
then true that sincere and disinterested liberalism 


234 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


was only a falsehood and a snare. It was a cruel 
dilemma for his patriotism, to think that this beauti- 
ful sentiment was either an empty word, or else that 
it must have taken refuge in the only party which 
he did not yet know. He was greatly tempted to 
go and see. The Patriote , moreover, was the best 
written and the most accredited paper of the democ- 
racy. Its popularity did not extend merely to the 
revolutionary quarters ; the bourgeoisie themselves 
liked to enjoy its spicy articles in order to get over 
the heavy reading of their own papers. Ably con- 
ducted, and written with talent and vigor, it made 
itself acceptable to the enlightened classes which it 
knew how to flatter, and which it endeavored to rally 
to the exaggeration of its ideas by the moderation 
of its language. The editors passed for honest peo- 
ple, and, what is more, for trustworthy men. They 
were known to be incapable not only of going into 
excesses similar to those which dishonored the first 
Republic, or even of finding excuses for them. 
Maurice, who was impatient to take up his pen 
again, and who had already made the acquaintance 
of several of the writers of the Patriote , could 
not resist very long the entreaties of the- captain. 
He finally yielded, and two or three days after, the 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


235 


bustling half-pay officer came to announce to him 
that the matter was all arranged, and that they had 
nothing further to do but present themselves at the 
office of the paper. 

Cordially received by the chief editor, Maurice 
found the same courtesy among the other mem- 
bers. The latter, without preoccupying themselves 
with his antecedents, seemed no more surprised to 
see him seated near them, at the common editor’s 
table, than a lawyer would be on finding himself in 
the evening at dinner seated by the side of a 
brother lawyer, against whom he had in the morning 
used terms of vituperation and irony. From the 
very next day he was looked upon as an old ac- 
quaintance. The editors of the Patriote were al- 
most all very elegant young men, aristocrats to their 
finger-ends, as aristocratic, and it is considerable to 
say, in their toilets and in their habits, as they were 
revolutionary in their style and in their writings. 
Certainly, when comparing them to his old col- 
leagues of the royalist press, simple, modest, and 
most all true children of the people, Maurice must 
often have said to himself that the political 
opinion of a man is somewhat like his coat; — 
it neither tells who nor what he is. More than 


236 


Twenty years in parts. 


once, at the hour when fashionable society meets at 
the Bois de Boulogne, a touching paragraph on the 
sufferings of the people and the extravagance of 
the rich was interrupted by the office boy, who 

called out : “ The carriage of Mr. A is at the 

door ; ” or, “ The horse of Mr. X is ready.” 

It was after writing some virulent article against 
the inequality of conditions, against the corrupting 
influences of money, or after hurling some old fling 
at the nobility, that our democratic champions be- 
spattered the pedestrians, who probably took them 
for noblemen, and that they exchanged gracious 
smiles with the pretty women, whom they happened 
to meet at the “ bois ” in their elegant coupes. 

Not, certainly, that they were on any terms of in- 
timacy with the ladies of the real aristocracy, but 
by their exquisite bows to some mock baroness, it 
was easy to see with what profound reverence their 
democratic and worldly self-love would have pros- 
trated itself before a genuine duchess. In the even- 
ing, when they were seated in all their glory in their 
boxes at the theatre, the prettiest ballet-dancers and 
the most charming actresses would embrace the op- 
portunity, while taking breath between two pirou- 
ettes, or a rest between two couplets, to offer theii 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


237 


most caressing smiles to these lions of publicity. 
These terrible slayers of noblemen’s rights received 
complacently the homage of their seducing vassals. 
By the satisfaction of their smiles, by the naivete of 
their protecting airs, one could see that they had as 
much faith in their power, as a legitimate prince has 
in his rights to the throne. 

“ Can it be possible,” thought Maurice, “ that the 
democracy has also its aristocrats ? Why ! they 
look very much like the others. . . . Only they 
know better how to make the poor people feel their 
superiority.” 

Still, it was not this thought that prevented him 
from following his colleagues in their pleasures. A 
circumstance, entirely personal, kept him from their 
amusements and their elegant fetes. 


238 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


xxm. 

At the time when Maurice wrote for the theatre, he 
had known a poor musician, who, with his violin un- 
der his arm, ran about from house to house during the 
day to give lessons, and for sixty francs a month de- 
voted his evenings to the orchestra of the Vaude- 
ville. He was a dapper little man, quick and alert 
in spite of his bald head and his sixty years ; strong- 
limbed, warm-hearted, always cheerful, forgetting 
the griefs of yesterday, disdainful of the threats of 
to-morrow, untiring in hope, and tenacious to his 
fancies, and who believed himself for a whole day 
long a millionaire, after dreaming at night that he 
was engaged at the Theatre-Italien or the Opera ; 
— the perfect embodiment of the enthusiastic, seedy- 
looking artist, always unfortunate and never dis- 
couraged. All the habitues of the green-room liked 
him for his good-humor, his courage and simplicity. 
The poor fellow had been married ; his wife was a 
chorus singer at the Opera-Comique, who died 
on giving birth to a little girl, who was all he 
had left on earth to love. He lived, he toiled, 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


239 


lie suffered for her. She was the only joy of his 
life, as his old instrument, Which faithfully earned 
for him his daily bread, was his only pride. He 
took upon himself the charge of rearing and 
instructing her ; to no one else he would have en- 
trusted this tender and precious burden. He had 
taught her reading, writing, spelling, the four rules 
of arithmetic, music, and drawing. Of the cate- 
chism even, and of higher literature, he had taught 
her nearly all he knew himself, which was not 
much to boast of. In order to complete the lit- 
erary and moral education of his dear Adeline, he 
took her every evening to the theatre, where he was 
obliged himself to go, and where she could not fail, 
according to his opinion, to form her taste and her 
heart, while applauding with her little hands the 
masterpieces of the day. 

Maurice had taken a lively interest in this strange 
family, with honest hearts but ill-directed minds, this 
Bohemian paternity, this gayly-supported misery. 
He had even been able, within the range of his own 
resources, to delicately render them some service. 
Later, when appointed chefde cabinet , he had tried to 
find for the old violin -player a modest but perma- 
nent position, which would insure to the improvi- 


240 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


dent artist bread for his old days, when the poor 
man, tired most likely with waiting for fortune to 
come, happened to die. With his bow in hand he 
died suddenly, while giving a lesson to his last and 
only scholar ; and Adeline remained an orphan at 
seventeen years, with no other inheritance than her 
father’s old violin. 

Maurice had felt too sincere an interest in the 
parent not to bestow upon the child a portion of 
his affection. His influence would have enabled 
him to obtain for her some small place in a public 
office where women are employed, but he dared not 
propose to drag her down to the common labor of 
the workshops, and she was totally incapable, at her 
age, to fulfil the duties of a more responsible posi- 
tion. Alone, without resources, unable to work 
with her hands to earn a livelihood, and exposed to 
the most dangerous seductions of Paris, her pro- 
tector trembled for her. lie felt it his duty, in re- 
membering his friendship for the unfortunate mu- 
sician, to protect the youth and beauty of the poor 
girl from the pressing temptations of misery and 
hunger. He accordingly furnished for her, at his 
own expense, a modest attic, and took upon himself 
the charge of providing for her slender existence. 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


241 


As long as he remained absorbed in the labors of 
the ministerial cabinet, he rarely saw her ; it was 
with difficulty that he found time each week to de- 
vote an hour or two to this interesting orphan, whom 
he always found in solitude and in tears. Finding 
himself more at liberty after his resignation, iso- 
lated and discouraged in his turn, his visits became 
more frequent. 

Adeline was a graceful and charming little 
blonde, with thick and silky hair, a sweet, childlike 
face, and with large black eyes which betrayed 
an indefinable expression of dreamy melancholy. 
Maurice attributed this sadness to the sufferings of 
her early years, to the suppression of all the delicate 
instincts and of all the elegant tastes of the young 
girl, obliged to struggle with the grievous exigencies 
of a needy existence. That tendency to romantic 
reveries was naturally explained to him by the in- 
fluence of an incomplete education and badly-se- 
lected reading. The lessons of her father, the aver- 
sion of the good man for any healthy and well-regu- 
lated existence, together with his dreams, which were 
in perpetual discord with reality, had developed in 
her without doubt that exaltation of language and 
that sentimental imagination, which, in the end, he 
11 


242 


TWENTY YEARS IN 1»ARTS. 


thought, would yield to example and the advice of a 
tender friendship. 

From day to day the relations became more inti- 
mate between these young people. Affectionate de- 
votion from the one, sweet gratitude from the other, 
such were the elements of a friendship which could 
not fail in time to turn into a sincere and ardent 
attachment. 

During six months, life glided on for our two 
lovers like a gently flowing rivulet that meets no 
obstacle in its course. Maurice, who had been 
crushed in his love, his pride, his ambition, and 
whose heart yet bled from this triple wound, felt all 
the springs of his soul gently unbend under the 
grateful influence of a mutual affection. Ilis heart 
already built the most poetic castles in Spain upon 
this charming attachment, lie was anxious to con- 
secrate it by an early marriage. Could he be guilty 
of playing the same odious part to the poor Adeline 
that Mademoiselle de Brugal had played to him, and 
from a sentiment of vanity repulse the happiness 
thus thrown in his way ? 

All the bitterness of the past was effaced from his 
heart, overflowing as it was with the joys of the 
present. Precisely- at four, while his friends, the 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


243 


Puritans of the Patriote , went displaying their 
horses and equipages at the Bois de Boulogne or 
the Champs Ely sees, he hastened straightway to his 
Adeline. In the evening he accompanied her to the 
theatre, unless they preferred to remain quietly at 
home. Adeline, brought up as she had been, en- 
joyed above all things the theatre ; she knew all the 
actors of Paris by their names, and went into 
raptures over their talents— which she saw fit to call 
genius, — and inwardly associated herself with their 
triumphs, as if they were all one family. It was 
particularly at the small theatres of the boulevards 
that she liked to spend her evenings. There she 
wept, sobbed, and cursed the traitor with rage. 
Hardly had she taken her seat in front of the stage, 
than her early nature began to show itself, and the 
blood of the old musician resumed its natural sway. 
Maurice paid but little attention to these childish 
demonstrations ; he had placed in her all his confi- 
dence as well as all his tenderness, and even his 
purse had no more secrets than his heart for his 
future wife. She governed her little house, chose, 
directed, and dismissed at her own pleasure hei 
servants, regulated all the expenses, kept carefully 
her keys, and did things so well, that her slave 


244 TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 

adored liis chain — chain of flowers, it is true, and 
held in a light hand. 

Whenever Maurice came, he always found Ade- 
line waiting for him with a tender impatience 
One day, for the first time since she kept house, he 
left the office before the accustomed hour, and call- 
ing there, found she was not at home. Two or three 
times, during the following days, these absences were 
repeated. He did not, however, take much notice of 
it ; but she, with such an awkward eagerness endeav- 
ored to make an explanation before one had been 
demanded of her, that any one less blind than Mau- 
rice would surely have conceived some suspicion. 
More and more absent and preoccupied, her eyes 
seemed to look in one direction, while her heart was 
in another. Fortunately for her, Maurice’s love was 
too sincere to notice it. Had he the right, besides, 
to doubt the poor child ? and these absences, were 
they not the most natural thing in the world ? 

But what astonished him more, was the rapid 
manner with which she seemed to dispose of her 
small allowance. Her household expenses had not 
increased, nor was this unaccountable prodigality 
justified by any extravagance in toilet or furniture 
He thought it would be sufficient to gently advise 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


245 


the young girl to use more reserve and economy, but 
the difficulty, far from diminishing, became worse, 
so much so that Maurice began to suspect the people 
in the house. He was on the point of taking some 
severe measures, when one day, calling in her absence, 
and without any suspicion opening a secret drawer 
to look for something which had been mislaid,* he 
put his hand on a small package of letters, which, 
slipping from their cover, fell open at his feet. 
Mechanically he cast a rapid glance over the first 
one he took up, and bounded, like a deer stung by a 
snake, at the reading of the following sentence 
which struck his eyes : 

“ Nightly, oh ! my angel, before the silent and glittering throng 
who listen to me from their boxes, before that noble and enthu- 
siastic people of the Parisian faubourgs who applaud me, I see 
only you, you alone. You are my perfume, my faith, my exist- 
ence ! To-morrow, then, oh sainted and beautiful madonna ! 
If I have not yet returned from the rehearsal, you will find 
the key with the concierge.” 

With a crisped hand, he opened the second letter 
and read : 

“You are noble, Adeline ; you are pure, you are an angel. Oh ! 
how often I have wished to take you by the hand and lead you 
through the solitary and sombre arches of some temple at the 
hour when the majestic peals of the organ cause the great painted 
windows to tremble, and there, kneeling by your side, implore 
— Heaven, bless our love ! ” . ... 


246 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


Another : 

“ My poor Adeline, I am in a terrible situation. It is dishonor, 
it is death ! The treasurer of our theatre has already advanced 
me three months of my salary ; I cannot borrow any more from 
him and I am hunted down for one unfortunate note of three hun- 
dred francs. Oh, misery ! to be emperor and king, and unable 
to pay one’s rent ! Oh Sophocles ! Oh Shakespeare ! Oh 
Corneille ! If you, dearest, could lend me for a few days that 
little sum, we could add to it all those I owe you already, and 
you will oblige for life your devoted slave.” .... 

Maurice stopped there. 

The absences of Adeline, her romantic reveries, 
her secret expenses, all were at last explained. But 
how can we prevent little ducks from dabbling in 
the mud ! The daughter of the poor and artless mu- 
sician allowed herself to be drained of every cent, 
like a sentimental fool, by some stupid coxcomb of 
the stage. 

Henceforth Maurice carried in his heart the image 
of the romantic Adeline as the counterpart of the 
noble Iolande de Brugal. 


Shortly after broke out the revolution of February. 
Louis Philippe abdicated, and the Republic was vic- 
torious. The latter, however, was not destined to 


TWENTY YEARS IN PARIS. 


247 


last long. Maurice, who had remained true to his 
political convictions, and been gravely compromised 
as a radical writer, not only in the Patriot e, but 
still more so in a paper which was devoted to the in- 
terests of the working classes, felt no longer safe in 
Paris under the new regime ; and utterly disgusted 
with politics, and society at large, he bade adieu to 
the capital, and left one evening by the express train 
for the scenes of his early home. 
















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MIONETTE. 












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PART THIRD 

KIONETTE. 



L 

Maurice had left the South with all the illusions, 
enthusiasm, and confiding ardor of a young man of 
twenty years ; he returned matured by experience, 
discouraged by deceptions, and saddened by reality. 
It was the medium in which he had lived, the cor- 
ruptions of Paris, the vanities, the ambition, the 
eager cupidities that besiege one there, which 
he decried as the causes of his grievous decep- 
tions and his disgust with the world and with 
life. Under the influence of the thousand remem- 
brances of childhood which rushed to his memory, 
he felt, as he approached his native country, that his 
ideas wandered in an entirely new direction. Ilis 
countenance resumed something of its former ani- 
mation ; the old smile returned to his lips, and calm- 
ness to his brow. He experienced, at the sight of the 


252 


MXONETTE. 


cheerful landscape through which he passed, the 
sentiment of the traveller of La Bruyere, who, on 
seeing his little village, exclaimed, “ What a pleas- 
ure to live under so beautiful a sky and in so en- 
chanting a spot ! ” On finding himself again in that 
beloved country, which appealed to the heart of the 
man through the tender voice of childhood, and 
where he sought in vain for so many friends who 
were gone forever, he experienced a feeling of secret 
bitterness and at the same time a sweet contentment 
which it would be difficult to describe. At the 
thought of his now sainted mother, his eyes mois- 
tened with tears. How many of us have ever ex- 
perienced the profound sadness which attends a re- 
turn to the deserted home ! 

I leave you to guess the feelings of Maurice at his 
first interview with his father. The latter had only 
grown a little older in outward appearance ; as to 
his mind, that was always active, always young. He 
pressed his son to his heart with tenderness, and 
showed him with pride his alembics, furnaces, and 
retorts, the instruments of his experiments and the 
results of his discoveries. As to the labors of Mau- 
rice in Paris, they were not alluded to. The old 
man obstinately avoided the subject. Immovable in 
his logic, unalterable in his course, he could not have 


MIONETTE. 


m 


Spoken without bitterness of the errors of his son, 
and he would not mar the joy of his return by retro- 
spective reproaches. Yernier had already passed 
his seventieth year. It was plain, therefore, that 
Maurice’s duty henceforth should be to devote him- 
self entirely to that lonely and laborious old man ; 
and he firmly resolved to pay back with interest his 
hitherto neglected debt of filial love. 

Already two or three months had passed away 
in a sort of busy idleness. The cares he lavished 
on his father, the visits he made to old acquaint- 
ances, his little excursions to the property left 
him by his mother, and which had been so long 
neglected, absorbed all his time. The monotony of 
such a quiet existence must finally end, however, in 
becoming irksome to one of so active a mind. The 
unceasing labors to which his father so closely ap- 
plied himself condemned Maurice to the weariness 
of an almost perpetual solitude. The latter did not 
sigh for Paris, that was very sure ; but he would 
have liked to see a few more people in the house. 
He began to fear for the results of this idle life, 
when one day they received a visit from an old 
friend, who had always expressed the greatest 
friendship for both his father and himself. 


254 


MIONETTE. 


The worthy man Plantade was an old soap-manu 
facturer from Marseilles, who, by his quick ges- 
ture, sonorous voice, and somewhat boisterous good 
nature revealed the genuine Proven9al. Since he 
had retired from business, he lived on an estate 
which he had recently bought in the neighborhood 
of the Yernier property. 

u Well, my young friend,” said the worthy bour- 
geois to Maurice, “ without spending time in cir- 
cumlocutions or periphrases, here you are, and I 
suppose will remain in these parts. Now you must 
begin to think of finishing up here.” 

“ Finishing up ? ” 

“ This place is not inhabitable, believe me, if one 
has not his little horse, his little carriage, his little 
house, his little estate, and his little wife. You 
have the little horse, the little house, the little car- 
riage.” . . . 

“ Can it be that you have already found me the 
little wife?” gayly interrupted Maurice, quite 
pleased with the words of the good man which went 
straight to his heart, for since his return to the 
country, and in his solitary home, the idea of mar- 
riage had more than once crossed his mind. 

“ Yes, my child ; a magnificent one ! Education, 


MIONETTE. 


255 


character, musical talent, religion, and two hundred 
thousand francs. A young lady with two hundred 
thousand francs is a rare bird.” . . . 

“ Above all when she is pretty ! Your protege, 
is she a nice girl 3 ” 

“ Adorable, lively, graceful, blonde. . . .” 

“ You will not take offence, I hope, if I should 
like to know her before closing the bargain ? ” 

“ You will see her, you will see her ; and if you 
do not fall in love with her at first sight. . . . But 
let us talk about yourself first. What is the exact 
amount of your fortune ? ” 

“ From ten to twelve thousand francs income.” 

“ Well, that is nice enough.” 

“ Add to it the eight or ten thousand francs from 
my father, which must eventually come to my 
children.” 

“ Oh ! eight or ten,” repeated the friend of the 
elder Vernier, shaking his head with an air of sad- 
ness and doubt. “ Never mind, you are as good as 
she, and I will set to work.” 

At heart Maurice was charmed with the propo- 
sition made him. If life in the country did not 
altogether displease him, he nevertheless acknowl- 
edged that absolute solitude was not the most agree- 


256 


MIONETTE. 


able thing in the world. The love of an amiable 
and devoted wife, the prattle of the joyful little ones 
who would climb upon his knee, the smiling prospect 
of a family circle, with its preoccupations and its 
joys, appeared already to his charmed imagination, 
and gave a brilliant glow to the monotony of a 
country home. It was necessary, therefore, to shape 
his existence for some serious end — the happi- 
ness of those beings whom God might confide to his 
keeping. He also pictured to himself, in a most 
attractive light, the young girl who was to become 
his wife. He fancied she was, without any doubt, 
an artless and loving child, brought up far from the 
noise and vanities of the world, simple, tender, pure, 
etc., etc., — the customary litany of qualities invaria- 
bly attributed to every young girl about to marry — 
precious vase, which does not exhale its perfume to 
the poisoned breath of the world. What a contrast 
to the haughty and designing women whom he had 
known in Paris, already suspected at twenty, hypo- 
critical courtesans at thirty, for whom marriage is 
only a halt, prompted by interest, and made between 
the romantic loves of yesterday and the designing 
intrigues of to-morrow. Chosen from the class to 
which he himself belonged, his wife would naturally 


MIONETTE. 


257 


share all his tastes and habits. Thereupon he built 
a thousand poetic castles in the air, and believed 
himself already desperately in love with the young 
girl, whom, up to that moment, he had not even seen. 

At the end of a week, his obliging old friend 
again made his appearance. 

“ Well ? ” he inquired, with curiosity. 

“Well!” answered the other, whose humiliated 
air and confused accent betrayed his disappoint- 
ment. “ Of no use ! Don’t be offended, though. 
It is not you they find fault with. Heavens ! sons- 
in-law of your calibre, intellectual, highly educated, 
honest, are not caught every day in our waters.” . . 

“ What then is the obstacle % ” 

“ It is your fortune.” 

“ My fortune ? ” 

“ Or, rather, no ; it is not precisely yours, my 
friend, but that of your very dear and very honored 
father. He has debts, they say. You understand 
that a young lady with two ! hundred ! thousand ! 
francs does not give herself away for nothing.” 

u Well ! never mind, we will talk no more about 
it,” replied Maurice, feeling more pained to see 
himself thus bargained for than afflicted by the 
diminution of his fortune. 


258 


MI0NETTE. 


“ You are right ; we will talk no more about it. 
Besides, when I come to think, I have another who 
I am sure will exactly suit you.” 

“ Another ? ” interrupted Maurice, smiling. “ Ah, 
my good old Plantade, you are then the Providence 
of the disposable young girls and old bachelors ? ” 

“ Well ! ” said the good man, “ the one I propose 
now is not as rich as the other, but just as good as 
regards family. As to face, character, figure, I 
would prefer, for my part, the second. She is tall, 
with an aristocratic air, brilliant eyes, lips like 
cherries — a sweet, sensible brunette.” 

“ Well ! ” exclaimed Maurice, with a new smile. 
“ Let us go in for the cherries ! I do not feel par- 
ticularly disposed to marry the highest bidder.” 

The young person described to Maurice was, in 
reality, equal in all respects to the first one. In 
the town, the two families shared the same social 
position, and enjoyed the same personal considera- 
tion. Only the fortune of the pretty brunette was 
inferior by half to that of the blonde, and estab- 
lished naturally between them, in the commercial 
minds of their compatriots, a distinct line of demar- 
cation. This well-established inferiority, as far as 
fortune was concerned, of Mademoiselle Leonie 


MIONETTE. 


259 


Cabassol, one would say ought to lead to an equiva- 
lent reduction in the pretensions of the family. 
Only a few days had passed, however, -when the 
officious matrimonial agent appeared again, more 
embarrassed, more confused, than on the first occa- 
sion. 

“ I see it by your face, my dear ambassador,” 
cheerfully exclaimed Maurice, guessing the answer 
by the piteous air of the old man; “ I see it by your 
face, no luck again.” 

“ Eh ! sacrebleu,” grumbled the Prove^al, “ it is 
no fault of mine. They now say that your father 
is entirely ruined, that he has not a penny left.” 

“ He has my fortune, anyhow,” replied Maurice, 
with emotion. 

“ Oh ! do not get angry, please. In the refusal 
of these good Cabassols there is nothing to wound 
the pride, neither of yourself nor of your excellent 
and respected father. They consider my old friend 
Vernier as the most irreproachable, distinguished, 
and honorable man of the department; upon you 
they have lavished every eulogium. Only they hope 
to marry their daughter to Kenard, the son of the 
banker. He has more than a million, you know.” 

t£ How! to the son of that infamous village usurer. 


260 


MIONETTE. 


who was once arrested for some fraudulent transae 
tion « ” 

“ He was acquitted. Besides he is dead, and the 
son is not responsible for the faults of his father.” 

“ Certainly not,” said Maurice ; “ quite the con- 
trary ! ” 

“Anyhow, don’t worry. I have promised to 
marry you, and marry you I will. Stop ! I know a 
young lady, less rich, it is true — a simple girl, with 
fifty thousand francs, but amiable, good, modest, 
prettier still than the other two. And such eyes! 
you would say of velvet ; and teeth ! they are like 
pearls ; a complexion ! as snow ; and hair ! like 
waves of gold.” 

“ My dear Plantade,” interrupted Maurice, seiz- 
ing his hand, “ I thank you for all the trouble you 
have taken upon yourself on my account, but I im- 
plore of you to cease all further efforts. I have had 
enough of this traffic in human flesh — we come out 
pretty much like negroes — and I must confess that 
I do not fancy the idea of being thus knocked down 
at auction. Besides, these marriages concluded like 
commercial operations, without reference to any 
previous acquaintance, without any mutual esteem 
or preexisting sympathy, have always beep, repug- 


MIONETTE. 


261 


nant to me. Decidedly I am too honest a man to 
marry on such conditions ; and since I have neither 
debts to liquidate, nor rheumatism to nurse, nor a 
position to be paid for with the fortune of my wife, 
I will reserve for myself the privilege of a choice.” 

“ To think, though,” he said to himself, when he 
was alone, that I was simple enough to imagine I 
might find in this part of the world the disinter- 
estedness of the golden age, and the simplicity of 
primitive life ! ” 


262 


MIONETTE. 


I 

n 

The good old man Plantade had in no way exag- 
gerated the bad state of affairs of the honest and 
learned chemist. How the father of Maurice had 
become so impoverished, how he had managed to 
get rid of his fortune during a life so discreet and 
quiet, was a question which his friends were unable 
to explain ; but is it not always so with people who 
have lost their money ? And still the cause of his 
ruin was easy to discover. During more than 
thirty years, he had procured at any price the most 
expensive instruments for his favorite science. 
There was no experiment he recoiled from, what- 
ever might have been the sacrifice of money it 
involved. I have already alluded to his charities. 
He could not bear that at the close of his life the 
poor in his charge should suffer from his present 
embarrassment, and as his resources diminished, he 
continued his alms the same as formerly. His love 
of celebrity, the absorbing obstinacy in the pursuit 
of his labors, and his disdain for everything which 
related to the material details of his existence, were 


MIONETTE. 


263 


by no means conducive to a very strict economy 
in his household affairs. It was in this way that 
his expenses habitually exceeded his income, and 
the day would surely come when, the water running 
no longer to the river and the river always flowing 
on, it must in the end become dry. The disaster 
of the old man Vernier was as complete as it was 
honorable. Was it not by assisting the unfortunate 
that he had expended a great portion of his patri- 
mony ? And if vanity and the desire to shine had at 
times too much influenced his conduct, had he not, 
by devoting himself to labors for which he refused 
remuneration, and in diffusing gratuitously the 
results of his useful inventions, obeyed a higher and 
nobler ambition — the ambition of serving his country 
and his fellow-beings ? 

A more serious cause of uneasiness came soon 
to increase the sadness of Maurice. The health 
of his father, until then firm and flourishing, ap- 
peared all of a sudden to fail. It was an indescri- 
bable uneasiness, a feverish agitation, which the phy- 
sicians were unable to define. Maurice redoubled 
his cares and attentions, but in vain ; the strength 
of the obstinate chemist gave out in the midst of his 
labors. The ungrateful silence with which his 


264 


MOKETTE. 


name had been latterly treated by the public, who 
had turned their attention toward younger reputa- 
tions and more recent discoveries, afflicted him bit- 
terly. This need of a stirring existence, of notoriety 
and popularity, which had been the joy of liis youth, 
became the torment of his old age. His robust 
constitution gradually yielded to the damage caused 
by time; the fortress from hour to hour became 
dismantled, and stone after stone fell away from 
the ruins. The day at last arrived when he was 
compelled to go to his bed never to leave it again. 

One evening he called Maurice to his side and 
expressed the wish to remain alone with him. 

“ My son,” he said, with an expression of profound 
tenderness, “ I feel that my last hour is approach- 
ing. God is my witness that you have had all my 
thoughts, all my affection. It is to you — to your 
future, that my existence has been entirely conse- 
crated ; it is for you alone that I have never stopped 
a moment, during my long career, these laborious 
studies which have brought me honors and celebrity. 
I might have directed my activity towards more 
obscure and more lucrative labors. But my ambi- 
tion had a higher aim. I have desired to render 
illustrious, while keeping it respected, the name you 


MI0NETTE. 


265 


have received from me. Thank God, I have suc- 
ceeded. You will doubtless find your inheritance 
greatly diminished ; I shall not be able to leave you 
as large a fortune as was left me by my poor father ; 
but, after all, of what consequence is money, my 
dear son ? You will not be rich, but you will be 
distinguished.” 

.Maurice fell into his arms, imploring him to cease 
this conversation, protesting that money was noth- 
ing to him, and a name still less, the affection of his 
dear parent being the only inheritance he desired. 
He spoke to the old man of the re-establishment of 
his health, and of the long and happy days they 
would yet pass together ; but the latter only sadly 
shook his head and embraced him anew. 

“ Ho,” he said, “ it is all over ; I feel I am going. 
You will gather the harvest I have sown. In the 
great consideration with which you will be treated 
by the world, you will find, my son, the reward of 
my disinterested life. If you wish to marry, } 7 ou 
will see how readily an alliance will be sought by 
the most honored families of the country. Will not 
parents prefer for their daughters the honor of a 
name without a stain, to the vulgar enjoyment of 

fortune ? If you wish to enter into any public office, 
12 


266 


MIONETTE. 


the renown of your father will throw open to you 
every door. Does a government ever allow itself 
to be dazzled by the moneyed position of its candi- 
dates, and does it not always recompense merit and 
virtue ? At the expense of your fortune, I will have 
made your happiness.” 

Three days later, he breathed his last in the arms 
of the sad and weeping Maurice. 

“ Good God,” cried he, falling on his knees be- 
fore the body of his father, whose icy hand he 
pressed in his own, “ may he rest as peacefully in 
death as in life! On this earth, he has believed 
in the success of merit, the reward of labor and 
knowledge, in the triumph of honesty ; in this be- 
lief he has been happy. I beseech thee, O God, in 
the realms of eternal truth, prolong for him the il- 
lusion ! ” 

The elder Vernier left his affairs extremely em- 
barrassed. Not only was his entire patrimony spent, 
but his debts were large enough to absorb even more 
than the fortune of his son. 

Maurice, whose knowledge of the law had been 
but little called into practice, and the excess of his 
grief also rendering him incapable of any other 
thought, would have, in accepting his inheritance, 


MIONETTE. 


267 


plunged himself into certain misery but for the 
kindly assistance of the old family notary, who came 
just in time to save him from trouble. Follow- 
ing the counsels of the latter, he abandoned to the 
creditors the entire property of his father, besides 
giving up his own, only reserving for himself such 
a portion as was absolutely necessary for his exist- 
ence. lie had inherited from his mother a small 
farm, which was worth some sixty thousand francs. 
With the exception of that simple home, the birth- 
place of his ancestors, the birthplace of his mother, 
and rendered sacred to him by all the souve- 
nirs which it recalled, he retained nothing of his 
former fortune. Reduced henceforth to content 
himself with a revenue of barely three thousand 
francs, he who had always lived in affluence, almost 
in luxury, he did not deliberate very long as to the 
manner in which he must act. To return to Paris, 
there to live in privation, rendered more cruel by the 
remembrance of his former pleasures, was impossi- 
ble ; he did not think of it, and he firmly resolved 
to live in the country and upon the income of his 
farm. 


268 


MlONETTfi. 


DX 

Such was the often-interrupted narrative of the 
monk of Franquevaux. Has it offered to the reader 
the same interest that it has to me ? The tone, the 
accent, the physiognomy of the speaker, the con- 
trast of the brilliant scenes where these incidents 
occurred with the melancholy solitude where they 
were related, the presence by my side of the 
principal actor himself, lent a charm to these inter- 
esting conversations which I fear I have only 
disfigured by endeavoring to weave them together. 
In listening to Maurice, it was clear that he had been 
the hero of the drama or the comedy, and that he 
had alternately smiled, wept, and suffered from all 
those details which my pen has been so inadequate 
to describe. 

Thanks to the cordial hospitality of the monk, I 
enjoyed extremely his seclusion. Little by little I 
accustomed myself with an inexpressible pleasure 
to this existence, at the same time uniform and 
varied, indolent- and active, and of which some new 
singularity was each day revealed to me. Thus, one 


MIONETTE. 


269 


morning, having risen later than usual, I sought in 
vain for my host. Contrary to his usual habit, lie 
had gone out without warning me. 

“ The master is out sowing,” replied the pretty 
Arlesienne servant in answer to my questions con- 
cerning him. 

I quickly directed my steps towards the field in- 
dicated. From afar I saw the monk of Franque- 
vaux walking with long strides, slow and regular as 
the movement of a pendulum, through his ploughed 
land. By turns he thrust his two hands into a 
large bag hung around his neck, and drew them out 
filled with grain, which he scattered equally right 
and left over the half-opened furrows with all the 
solicitude of a mother who distributes, at the hour 
of their repast, an equal portion to each of her 
children. 

“ Ha, ha ! ” he exclaimed, laughing, the moment 
he recognized me ; “ you did not expect to find me 
at this business ? ” 

“ To tell the truth, I supposed you merely directed 
the work on your farm.” 

“You are nearly right; I let the men attend to 
the ploughing, pruning, and all preparatory work ; 
but the vintage and the harvest I have done under 


270 


MIONETTE. 


my own eyes. As to the sowing, I do not yield to 
any one the privilege of committing to the earth 
the wheat that is to become my bread. It is a filial 
homage which I owe and render to our common 
mother.” 

The variations of the temperature are sudden in 
November, and bad weather rapidly succeeds fine 
days. The sun, which until then had been radiant, 
became suddenly obscured by clouds ; we heard the 
sea- winds moan through the high trees, and the rain, 
which came down in torrents, held us prisoners at 
home. It seemed an excellent opportunity to de- 
mand of my host the remainder of his narrative. 

It was one of those damp days, when the clouds 
roll and toss the one over the other like winged 
waves. Beneath the window of Maurice’s study, 
where we were shut in, extended, as far as the eye 
could reach, the marshes enveloped in a thick mist, 
which rose from the earth towards the sky, blending 
the two elements in the same gloom and the same 
fog. The rain beat against the windows, and striped 
with threads of silver the sombre depths of the 
horizon. A clear and sparkling fire blazed in the 
chimney before which we were both seated, buried 
in the huge arm-chairs that had so charmed me o:< 


I 


271 


MIONETTE. 

my arrival. A Christmas eve could not have been 
more favorable for the confidence of my host. He 
seemed to understand it, and without requiring too 
much urging, he continued his history as follows. 


} 


i 


272 


MIONETTE. 


rv. 

My slender domain liad been leased by a worthy 
man whose father and grandfather had lived before 
him on the old family farm. The modest income 
which I received from it was not sufficient for my 
support. If I expected to live from the revenue of 
my land, it was absolutely necessary for me to work it 
myself, and to husband those thousand little resources 
which have no direct money value, though very impor- 
tant in themselves, and which the most humble farm 
offers to the one who lives upon it. I experienced 
a great repugnance in sending away the honest 
and devoted servant of my family, well understand- 
ing the bitter grief .which this kind of exile would 
bring upon his old age. He was born in that house, 
and had been married there. All his joys and 
sufferings he had there felt. It was in that room, 
in the bed where he slept, he had seen his father, 
mother, and wife, all die. He now remained alone 
on this farm, deprived of so much he had loved, 
with a daughter of seventeen or eighteen years, the 
Jast and only object of his tenderness. This corner of 


MTONETTE. 


273 


the earth, where I had never put my foot ten times 
in my life, was endeared to him by the remembrance 
of the tears he had shed there and the joys and 
happiness he had there tasted. He had made it his 
own, so to speak, by his patient labors at all hours, 
by toilsome sweats, and by the affection which 
attached him to the place where he had lived and 
hoped to die. And yet for what purpose had I 
reserved this farm, if without any advantage to 
myself ; and for what reason had I kept it away 
from my father’s creditors, if its possession did not 
insure my support? I felt, therefore, obliged to 
inform the good old Laurent of my situation. My 
letter, as affectionate as possible, conveyed to him 
the true condition of my affairs, the impossibility 
for us both to live from so small a place, and the 
sincere regret I felt in giving him this notice. In 
short, I endeavored to smooth as much as I could, by 
the cordiality of my expressions, the harshness of a 
measure which was unavoidable and, perhaps, more 
painful to me, who had to resort to it, than for him 
who was the object of it. 

The day Laurent left the farm I went there 
toward evening. The sun gilded the country with 
its dying rays. Not a noise disturbed the ground, 
12 * 


274 


MIONKTTE. 


not a breath stirred the air. At rare intervals the 
silence was interrupted by the warbling of some 
bird perched on the top of an almond tree. Never 
had a beautiful day so sweet a decline. The mute 
harmony of nature, the majestic melancholy of the 
setting sun, the soft transparency of the air, the 
sight of the sea and marshes glowing like fire in the 
horizon, involuntarily inclined my soul to reverie, 
and as I wound my way along, I became more and 
more lost in feelings of admiration and sadness. 

A short distance from my poor habitation, I 
recognized Laurent, who seemed to come in my 
direction. He was seated in a little cart, his elbows 
on his knees, his head in his hands, his eyes fixed 
on the ground and apparently motionless. Some- 
times he turned to throw stealthily through the trees 
a sad look toward the farm-house from the chimney 
of which the smoke was yet curling. The little cart 
moved sadly and slowly ; there was something in 
its progress almost funereal. The whip no longer 
snapped, neither did Laurent stir with his voice the 
lazy mule. As far as he was concerned it only 
moved too quickly, that wagon which carried him 
away from his native home and table, where he had 
sat with bis friends to enjoy his happy wedding 


MIONETTE. 


275 


repast, the bed where his wife had died, and the 
cradle where, for the first time, his child had smiled 
upon him in its innocence. 

I dared not show myself at this moment, and con- 
cealed behind a grove of green oaks at the side of 
the road, I let the old man pass. Some hundred 
yards behind, came his daughter. She led by the 
bridle a donkey loaded with kitchen utensils; but 
the obstinate animal, pulling the halter every little 
while, refused to go on, and resisted its guide, who 
exhausted herself in vain efforts. 

“ Hie ! my good Martine, hie ! my old pet,” said the 
poor child, with more pity than anger in her tone. 
“ We must obey when the masters command.” . . 

I had never seen Mionette, who was born and had 
grown up during my stay in Paris. And now, look- 
ing upon her for the first time, I was struck by her 
pure and serene beauty. To her, I was only a stran- 
ger. The same reasons, however, which prevented 
me from being seen by her father, did not extend to 
her. So I thought I might venture to say a few 
words. 

“ My child,” I said, “ let me lend you some of my 
strength ; my arm is more vigorous than yours, and 


276 


MIONETTE. 


is better able to correct and subdue this wicked 
beast.” 

“Wicked?” quickly repeated the young girl. 
“ No, sir ; Martine is the most sober and honest 
donkey in the whole country; only she does not 
like to leave her stable. . . . Alas ! ” she added, 
opening upon me her large eyes, sweet and frank, 
with an expression of resigned sadness which im- 
pressed me, “ where we are born, people or animals, 
we like to die.” 

Wishing to continue the conversation, I found 
some pretext to retrace my steps, and I walked 
along with her. Mionette ingenuously related 
all her troubles and those of her father without al- 
lowing a vrord of reproach against the author of 
them to escape her lips. If she was unfortunate, 
was not the proprietor of the farm still more so ? 

“ I do not know him,” she said, “ but my father 
has often spoken of the kindness of his family 
toward us. Is it not just, when the rich and happy 
masters have shown themselves kind and affection- 
ate toward their servants, that the servants in their 
turn should prove devoted and grateful to their 
masters when they meet with misfortunes and be- 
come poor ? ” 


MIONETTE. 


277 


You can guess my emotipn. This hereditary and 
disinterested devotion, the sincerity of this artless 
affection, this simplicity of sentiment and language 
touched my heart ; tears filled my eyes. I had not 
the strength to contain myself any longer. 

“Mionette,” I said, taking her hands in mine, 
which she withdrew with a feeling of frightened 
modesty, “ you are a good and honest girl, and I 
owe to you in my misfortune one of the sweetest 
moments of my life. I am Maurice Yernier.” 

At these words she remained stupefied, speechless, 
her eyes gazing into mine with a restless astonish- 
ment, and stammering a few unintelligible words 
which sounded like excuses, while I ought to have 
thanked her from the very depths of my soul for 
the joy which she poured into my heart, weaned 
since so long a time from every fresh and honest 
emotion. Finally, overcoming her confusion, she 
smiled, held out her hand to me, and with a trem- 
bling voice : 

“Father! dear father!” she called, “here is Mr. 
Yernier. Come, he is here. Dear father.” . . . . 

But before even the old man could turn his head, 
I had disappeared behind the trees among the vines 
which clustered by the roadside. 


278 


MONTCTTE. 


V. 

I was no sooner established on my farm than 
I resolutely commenced my new existence, and set 
to work without losing time. It was with some mis- 
givings though, I am forced to confess, that I made 
up my mind to do so. In spite of my strength of 
will, I sometimes was afraid that the solitude would 
prove too wearisome for me. During the first few 
weeks the time passed quickly enough, and I attrib- 
uted to the charm of novelty the pleasure I took in 
country work. Little by little, however, it seemed to 
me, I found a more genuine charm in this existence, 
which contrasted so singularly with my past life. 
My house was not so comfortable then as it is to- 
day, and my farm in no way resembled the one I 
now occupy. After a day entirely employed in sup- 
erintending my men, studying the nature of the 
soil, and the best mode to make it productive, 
sometimes even handling the spade for a while, 
— when in the evening I found myself alone in 
my little whitewashed room, the fatigue which 
overpowered me made me forget the privations to 


MIONETTE. 


279 


which my mind was condemned. For my society, 
I was reduced to two ploughmen, I, who during so 
long a time had passed my evenings in the midst of 
the most brilliant intellects of Paris. The mute 
contemplation of nature at rest, the silent harmony 
of our beautiful starry nights, the magnificence of 
the calm and serene immensity which surrounded 
me, the sweetness until then unknown of the re- 
freshing sleep which follows a day of labor in the 
fields, compensated for the absence of Parisian 
salons and gayety. 

During the first months of my stay, the old Lau- 
rent spared neither his time nor his advice. He ex- 
perienced a bitter pleasure to come and see me at 
the farm, and there to revive some old recollections. 
Born on my little piece of land, he knew and taught 
me, in every detail, the arid spots and the most fertile 
places. His daughter often accompanied him ; both 
expressed for me a sincere attachment. Laurent, 
who remembered with pride having driven my 
mother’s carriage, grieved over my poverty. As to 
Mionette, if she did not express so frankly her ten- 
der compassion, her eyes spoke for her, and the sym- 
pathy that my misfortunes inspired I could read in 
her sweet and profound look. I felt that I had but 


280 


MIONETTE. 


to say the word, and she would come to serve me and 
take the charge of my house. I was certain her father 
would not have hesitated to intrust her to my care ; 
but, in addition to his requiring the services of his 
daughter himself, I would have scrupled to expose 
the poor child, even in the most innocent manner, to 
mischievous suspicions and malicious gossip. 

At the end of six months I had a thorough knowl- 
edge of the ground I had to cultivate. I could, 
therefore, feel satisfied with directing the work with- 
out subjecting myself any longer to the annoyance 
of a constant supervision. Already I had resorted 
to my gun for recreation ; I now used it more fre- 
quently. I spent the greater part of my days hunt- 
ing, sometimes for the red partridge, which are so 
plenty on our hills, sometimes in the marshes and salt 
meadows, in search of snipe and other waterfowl. 
On these excursions I frequently met Mionette, and 
exchanged each time a few words with her. 

“ Mionette,” I said one day, “ tell me honestly ; 
do you really regret the humble roof of my farm \ ” 

“The swallow,” she sweetly replied, “always re- 
members its nest.” 

“ And you undoubtedly hold it against him who 
has turned you out.” 


mionette. 


281 


u I hold it against you I ” she exclaimed with an 
emotion which I involuntarily shared. “ What right 
would I have to do so? To be compelled to live 
there, sad and alone, is it not a more cruel necessity 
for you, than for us to leave it ? ” 

Meetings of this kind occurred quite often. It 
would seem as if Mionette, whom I had objected to 
taking into my service, sought the opportunity, since 
she could not make herself useful to me in the house, 
to make up for it by doing something for my bene- 
fit outside. When hunting, I frequently saw her 
running, excited and quite out of breath : 

“ Sir, the partridges are in this vineyard ; come 
this way ! ” 

At another time : 

“ Sir, the hare has liiddden under these bushes.” 
And her eyes beamed with joy at the idea of be- 
ing able to procure some pleasure for me. 

Shall I say it ? Dare I venture to lay plainly be- 
fore you the infirmities of my soul? I began to 
feel uneasy at this eagerness on her part to serve me. 
My numerous deceptions in life had awakened my 
distrust. I was in that strange and painful situation 
of a man who wants to believe and who doubts, who 
would wish to give himself up to the good instincts 


282 


MTONETTE. 


of his heart, and who fears to be the dupe of it. 
My sad experience of the world had taught me to 
seek always a deceitful calculation beneath an hon- 
est word or a good action. The seemingly ingenu- 
ous affection of this young girl, might it not after 
all be only a selfish falsehood, which concealed 
some snare ? This melancholy thought so took pos- 
session of my mind that I resolved to put an end to 
our interviews. My heart had already played me 
too many tricks in life. Under the poetic influence 
of solitude, of the pure air of the fields, and the 
beauty of Mionette, I was afraid of some new ca- 
price, and at the idea of being once more victimized, 
my pride revolted. I no longer frequented the 
places where I was in the habit of going, and I did 
not see her again for two or three weeks. Finally 
one day I espied her at a distance, seated by the side 
of a ditch, her form bent forward, her head leaning 
in a melancholy manner in her hands, and with a 
dreamy, wandering expression. On seeing me she 
jumped up and came eagerly towards me. 

“ Where have you been hunting for the last 
month ? ” she asked with a trembling voice and tear- 
ful eyes. “ Where have you been I have not seen 
you once, and yet I have never left for a single 


MIONETTE. 


283 


day these hills you so much like.” Equally af- 
fected, I avoided answering her questions, assuming 
a coldness and indifference in order to conceal my 
confusion, and I went away leaving her alone, sad, 
and in tears. 


m 


MIONETTE. 


VL 

About this time, in order to completely discourage 
by my absence any calculations or illusions which 
might possibly have formed in her mind, I con- 
ceived the project of spending a short time in the 
Oamargue. It was in 1856, in the beginning of 
the month of May. The spring, on my farm, which 
does not produce forage, is the dead season. The 
only work the soil requires at that period is the 
spading of the vineyards. I availed myself of the 
opportunity, and having taken proper information 
of my faithful Laurent, I crossed the bridge of 
Saint-Gilles. 

For several days the weather had been horrible, 
a mixture of furious winds and deluging rains. 
The tempest roared over the sea, and the marshes 
of the Camargue. The waters of the Bhone rose 
higher and higher, and all the game had taken ref- 
uge in the interior of the island, there to seek for 
shelter. I made my headquarters in a farm situ- 
ated on the bank of the lesser Bhone, which Laurent 
had recommended to me ; going out every morning 


MI0NETTE. 


285 


with my dog and gun, to search the country for 
game. The farm of Rigaudon, that was its name, is 
built on the slope of a dyke. The entrance door 
faces the south ; the windows of the second floor 
open towards the north, on the Rhone, and on the 
other side upon the plain. The abundance of game 
kept me, in spite of the bad weather, far beyond the 
time I had assigned for my little excursion, and the 
31st of May yet found me in the Camargue. 

That day — the date will never be effaced from 
my memory— I went out hunting, as usual. During 
the preceding night the Rhone had prodigiously 
swollen, and since morning the sea wind raged with 
an extraordinary violence. I met several herdsmen 
hurriedly bringing back their cattle to the, stable, 
and some farm hands who came in great haste to 
carry into their barns the working implements which 
they were in the habit of leaving over night in the 
fields. As I asked them the cause of this eagerness- 
and alarm, they shook their heads in distress, and, 
motioning from the south to the north, they pointed 
with a frightened look to the struggle of the wind 
against the water, driving the latter back to its 
source. The horses and cattle, sniffing the humid air 
with dilated nostrils, and turning towards the south, 


286 


MI0NETTE. 


neighed or bellowed with fright. The birds flew 
wildly about, uttering long, plaintive cries, and look- 
ing from on high upon this furious war of the ele- 
ments, exposed themselves to the aim of the huntei 
with an indifference which was ominous, since no 
thing but the instinct of some approaching dangei 
could thus distract them from their present peril. 
In following the game, I had gone more into the in- 
terior of the island, and a greater distance from the 
Rhone. Such was the impetuosity of the river, that 
three miles distant I yet heard its roaring. In the 
evening, when I returned to the farm, I found its 
occupants all huddled together in the kitchen, under 
the huge chimney-piece, suffering with a visible 
anxiety. On seeing me they uttered cries of joy. 

“ Sir,” said the farmer’s wife, “ we trembled for 
fear you were lost in the island. The Rhone is very 
threatening to-night. May God protect us ! ” added 
she, making the sign of the cross. 

I placed upon the table the bountiful products of 
my hunt, which for the first time, in the general 
consternation, were received neither by the thanks of 
the mother nor the joyous exclamations of the chil- 
dren. They served me my dinner with all possible 


MIONETTE. 


287 


haste, and I went upstairs to my room, which over- 
looked the Rhone. 

The angry river carried away trunks of trees, 
enormous wooden beams, the debris of bridges and 
boats, and passed under my window a whirlpool of 
foam. Night at length arrived. The sky here and 
there tore in twain its black curtain of clouds, as if 
to allow us to contemplate the scene of desolation. 
The wind had redoubled its violence, and the re- 
sistance it offered to the Rhone only seemed to exas- 
perate the anger of the frightful torrent. In the 
darkness the great river groaned, sighed, and roared ; 
there were by turns cries of rage, stifled sobs, sharp 
whistlings and ferocious shrieks, which froze the 
blood in my veins. At one time it could only be 
compared to a furious multitude, with all the accents 
of anger and threats, with all the exclamations of 
fright and despair ; at Other times* to a crowd of 
wagons, locomotives, and steam-engines, rolling, 
screaming, grinding, and dashing along with a fright- 
ful noise. Then to these appalling sounds suddenly 
succeeded a silence more mournful still, and I could 
hear nothing but the long moans and heart-rending 
wails of the south wind. My excited imagination 
saw the panting river carry away in its course fu- 


288 


MIONETTE. 


neral barks, laden with dying freight, whose groans, 
I fancied, I could hear — phantom vessels loaded with 
souls borne onward toward the sea with a fantastic 
speed. Presently a dull, jerking, strange noise rose 
above the roaring of the winds and waves. At each 
of these shocks it seemed as if the house rocked 
on its very base, and fell heavily back on its 
sapped foundation. Without attempting to account 
for the sensation I experienced, this new accident 
alarmed me more than all the others. The night 
was too dark to distinguish anything. The noise 
besides seemed subterranean. At one time I shiv- 
ered at the idea of an earthquake in the midst of 
this terrible convulsion of nature. The cold damp 
air I breathed at my window began to affect me ; in 
bed it would have been impossible to close my eyes. 
I decided to go to the lower hall, where a confused 
murmur of voices and steps indicated that every one 
was up in the house. 

The sight that met my eyes when I entered will 
never be effaced from my memory. The mother, 
her head veiled with her neckerchief — special sign 
of extreme terror with the peasant women of the 
south — was kneeling between her two children 
in tears, and earnestly praying in a low voice. The 


MIONETTE. 


289 


farmer and his men were seated on a wooden bench, 
with their heads bowed in silence. In that damp 
and smoky hall, by the pale light of the little lamp 
fastened to the wall, I had, as it were, a vision of 
condemned culprits awaiting in their dungeons the 
death-summons. 

“ What is the matter ? ” I asked ; “ what new mis- 
fortune now ?”.... A frightful explosion cut short 
my question. The children pressed, with piercing 
cries, against their frightened mother ; the men fell 
upon their knees. 

“ The Rhone ! ” exclaimed a voice. 

“ Holy Mary ! have mercy on us ! 99 cried all 
those present, overcome with fright and despair, 
their heads bent to the ground. 

A silence of death followed these words. 

The danger was revealed to me. The terrible 
concussion, which a moment previous had shook the 
house, indicated the furious effort of the Rh6ne 
against the obstacle which opposed its overflowing. 
It had Anally triumphed over its tenacious adver- 
sary ; the dyke had broken ! 

To give you an idea of our anguish and distress 
would be impossible. The formidable explosion 
produced by the breaking of the dyke was follow- 
13 


290 


MIONETTE. 


ed by a prolonged roaring of the waves which, 
rushing into the gap, were surrounding the house. 
The torrent struck with repeated blows, like a bat- 
tering ram pushed by an entire army, against our 
walls, which were on the point of falling. I had 
given up all for lost, so certain I was that the poor 
little habitation was unable to resist the gigantic 
assault of the flood-king. From the kitchen, which 
was at once deluged with water, we were obliged to 
take refuge on the second floor. A shipwrecked 
crew, clinging to the last fragments of their raft, 
could not have been more wretched than \ye. Dur- 
ing an hour, which seemed a century, we fancied we 
felt at each moment the icy hand of death placed 
upon us. What a night ! The first fury of the in- 
undation appeared, however, slightly to abate ; the 
noise had sensibly diminished in violence, the most 
pressing danger seemed for the moment to be sus- 
pended, and we waited for daylight with great 
anxiety. 

The first gleam of morning finally came to show 
us the reality in all its horror. The Bhone had 
broken its dyke a few yards from the farm-house ; 
one of the walls had even yielded to its first impetu- 
osity. The river, rushing through the opening it 


MIONETTE. 


291 


had made, had first dashed in all directions over 
the island. This was the moment its roaring 
had so much alarmed us. It had finally made a 
new bed at the place of the breach, and spread freely 
over the plain. From that moment the house was 
in no further danger than that of sinking on its foun- 
dation into the lake which had formed around it, 
and out of which rose up in the distance elms, 
cypresses, and poplars, like masts of innumerable 
vessels submerged in this general deluge. 

We had escaped the peril of an immediate catas- 
trophe, but other dangers still threatened us. With- 
out speaking of the fear of seeing the house grad- 
ually undermined by the waters and burying us 
alive under its ruins, another death more hideous 
still stared us in the face. We should soon be with- 
out food. No doubt all who could would hasten in 
their boats to the relief of the sufferers, provide for 
their immediate wants, or take them in their vessels 
and land them in a safe place. However, to organ- 
ize such an expedition would require time. * The 
proximity of the breach and the impetuosity of the 
current rendered, besides, all attempts in our direc- 
tion extremely dangerous. During the day we saw 
several boats pass by at a great distance. It was in 


292 


MTONETTE. 


vain that from the roof of the house we hailed their 
crew with all the strength of our lungs. It was in 
vain we waved our handkerchiefs in sign of distress. 
They gave us to understand by their gestures that 
they were afraid of foundering by venturing too 
near the broken dyke, and that they would get 
stronger boats and better able to resist the violence 
of the current at this perilous spot. Night was fast 
approaching; we were threatened with having to 
pass another ten hours, ten mortal hours of darkness, 
in that state of helplessness, and our discouragement 
was turning to despair, when we espied in the hori- 
zon a little boat, which seemed to come with full 
speed towards us. It was with the greatest difficulty 
that it succeeded in coming near, and when it was 
within speaking distance, I heard distinctly some 
one call my name. I showed myself at the window, 
and the frail bark, struggling with redoubled 
energy against the contrary current, advanced, 
drew back, came up again, to be drawn away anew, 
always repulsed but never discouraged, and making 
its way little by little, finally came up and moored 
by a window on the second floor. It was rowed 
by two men, and pale at the same time with 
terror and joy, I recognized, through the darkness, 


MIONETTE. 


293 


Mionette seated at the helm. I sprang toward 
her, and taking her hands : 

“ What ! ” I exclaimed, “ is it you who have 
saved us ? you ! Mionette ? ” 

“Was it not my duty?” she replied, her voice 
trembling with emotion. 

“ How did you learn I was at this farm ? ” 

“ Through my father. But that is of no conse- 
quence ; let us be off ; time presses.” . . . 

While we were exchanging these hurried words, 
the inhabitants of the farm, to the number of ten, 
had taken their places, men, women, and children, 
in the little boat. I seated myself by the side of 
Mionette, and very soon, carried away by the cur- 
rent, we rowed towards Saint-Gilles, not without 
great fear and anxiety of being capsized at any 
moment. 


294 


MIONETTE. 


VTL 

On landing, I found warm clothing, wine and 
coffee prepared especially for me, also a horse and 
wagon waiting to carry me to my farm. The provi- 
dent Mionette had forgotten nothing. She seated 
herself beside me and we rode home. 

“ Did you well consider, imprudent and generous 
girl as you are,” I said, when we had passed the 
first house in the village, “the rashness of your 
enterprise ? ” 

“ I had not the time to think,” she coolly replied. 
“ If you were to be saved, it was more important to 
act.” 

“ But you should have thought of your father ; in 
his extreme old age, how much he requires your 
care.” 

“ Alas ! what do my cares amount to,” she re- 
plied, with a sweet and reproachful voice ; “ you 
certainly have not the right to speak of them, since 
you refuse them.” 

This artless devotion, which spoke for itself, 
touched the innermost chords of my soul. I felt my 


MIONETTE. 


295 


heart gently beat under an impression which until 
then I had been an entire stranger to. My grateful 
admiration elevated to a heroine the humble peasant 
girl, and Mionette insinuated herself at the same 
time into my tenderness and respect. From the 
moment we arrived : 

“ Let us see ; we must now attend to the dinner,” 
said the young girl, whose gayety seemed to revive 
as soon as we entered the gate of the farm; and 
immediately setting herself to work, searching the 
closets, turning upside down everything in the 
buffet, and making herself perfectly at home, she 
prepared a frugal but excellent repast, which I 
invited her to share with me. 

“No,” she said, “the men sit at the table; the 
women must stand by to wait upon them.” 

It was impossible to make her sit down with me ; 
she would not have infringed for the world upon 
that old custom of her country, where even the wife 
or the mother makes it her pride to become the 
servant of the son or husband. 

After dinner, when she had put everything in 
order, she came, with all simplicity, to say good-by, 
as if nothing remarkable had passed during the day, 
and as if she had already forgotten the great service 


296 


MT0NETTE3. 


she had rendered me at the risk of her life. Then 
she quietly left, and turned her steps homeward. 

From that day she seldom came to the farm, but 
in the thousand little details of tender forethought, 
thousand little feminine delicacies, I recognized her 
hand, and I felt that she watched over me, even 
from a distance. In my lonely existence, I saw 
around me all those sweet attentions which might 
have been bestowed by a devoted sister. The sen- 
timent which this timid and discreet affection in- 
spired, called forth with renewed strength my 
disdain for my former life. In spite of me, my 
thoughts would constantly go back to that young 
girl, whose beauty, simple as her heart, had capti- 
vated me without coquetry, and whose spontaneous 
devotion was lavished upon me so unceasingly. 
Little by little I began to perceive that my reason 
and will lost all command over my heart. I saw 
plainly that it would be wiser, in the very interest 
of Mionette as well as for her happiness, that I 
should see her but seldom, and I resigned myself to 
this sacrifice, however painful it might henceforth 
prove to me. 

An unforeseen circumstance, however, came to 
frustrate this fine resolution. Two or three months 


MIONETTE. 


297 


later, in September, after a day’s hunt in the marsli 
Co, a violent headache compelled me to go to bed 
A sickness set in which gradually became worse, 
and very soon exhibited all the symptoms of inflam- 
mation of the lungs. The physician of Saint-Gilles, 
who had been hastily called in, guaranteed my re- 
covery ; but the disease had to take its course, and 
until the ninth day, the day of the crisis, I went 
through all its stages. Hardly had Mionette been 
informed of the' circumstance, than she hastened 
over to see me. She insisted on passing every night 
by my bedside with her father, observing the progress 
of the disease, watching my slightest movements, 
indeed, every breath. If occasionally, with an en- 
feebled voice, I tried to express my gratitude, the 
darling child would place her finger on her pretty 
lips, and compel me to remain silent. 

“ Hush ! ” she said ; “ every word fatigues you, 
and a mere look is sufficient for me.” 

During the entire period of my convalescence, 
Mionette remained near me. The poor state of my 
health would have prevented the mind of the most 
foolish or wicked from entertaining the least im- 
proper thought. But when I considered myself in 

a fair way of recovery, the idea that her presence 
13 * 


298 


MTONETTE. 


might be wrongly interpreted commenced to torment 
me anew. The more tenderness and vigilance she 
manifested, the more I considered it my duty to be- 
come scrupulous for everything that concerned her 
honor. 

She accompanied me every day in my little walks 
around the farm, which the doctor had recommended 
to bring up my strength. One day we went out 
about noon, and slowly directed our steps towards a 
little hill thickly covered with pine-trees in the 
neighborhood of my house. The sky was perfectly 
clear, the air was lukewarm, and impregnated with 
the penetrating odors of the Proven <jal heath. A 
sweet October sun warmed my enervated limbs, 
which revived under its rays with a feeling of re- 
newed well-being. After an hour’s walking, Mio- 
nette urged me to sit down and rest, which I did, 
and she seated herself near me : 

“Well,” she said smilingly, “ I suppose in another 
week you will take your gun, and be off again on 
your old excursions.” . . . 

“ Yes,” I replied, with a grieved heart and a pain- 
ful effort over myself, for I had all at once decided 
to embrace this opportunity to have a fair explana- 
tion with her ; “ yes, my strength will come back, 


MIONETTE. 


299 


but my cure, alas ! will not be a happiness for me, 
but only a new vexation. 

“ A vexation ? ” said the young girl with an artless 
movement of surprise, opening upon me her large, 
anxious eyes ; “ a vexation, holy virgin, and why ? ” 

“ Because my restoration to health will hasten our 
separation.” 

“ Our separation !”.... 

The words died upon her lips. 

“ Listen to me, Mionette,” I replied, trying to give 
to my words a tone of decision and authority, in 
which I but poorly succeeded. “ Your family for a 
long time have been attached to mine. I feel for 
your father a true friendship, and you yourself can- 
not doubt the affection you have inspired me with. 
In the absence of a more tender sentiment, does not 
your devotion impose upon me the duty of a grati- 
tude equal to the peril which you have braved to 
save my life ! This is the reason I cannot keep 
you near me. You are young, Mionette ; you are 
beautiful. Think what might be the consequence 
of your remaining, although innocently, under my 
roof. If some injurious gossip should arise against 
us, how could we lay hold of it in its deep and per- 
fidious course to put it down ? Appearances would 


300 


MIONETTE. 


bear witness against ns, and if these wicked insin- 
uations should take shape, would you not find it a 
difficult matter to get married afterward ? ” While 
listening to me, Mionette’s face became sad, her lips 
slightly quivered, betraying the difficulty she expe- 
rienced to conceal her emotion ; her eyes glistened 
under her drooping lids, and then swam in tears. 

“ I do not wish to marry,” she abruptly answered. 

“Will you always think so?” I asked. “Any 
way, your marriage is not the only reason why I 
think a separation necessary. It is sufficient that 
your reputation is at stake ! ” 

“ It is necessary, then,” she exclaimed, without be- 
ing able any longer to restrain the tears which op- 
pressed her, “ that on my account, on account of my 
reputation, and my marriage — three miseries — you 
must be deprived of disinterested attentions, and a 
sincere affection ? ” 

“ Do not think of me.” 

“ Ah ! ” she murmured, sobbing, “ on the contrary, 
it is only you I do think of.” 

Notwithstanding the emotion which overpowered 
me, I tried to make her view the matter differently. 
But all my efforts were in vain. 

“ Really,” she said, unable any longer to restrain 


MIONETTE. 


301 


her pent-up grief, “ I really believe you find pleas- 
ure in tormenting me. But, after all, what differ- 
ence does it make to you whether I go or stay ? 
Could you not allow yourself to be cared for and 
waited upon, without deigning to cast a look upon 
your servant. O ! sir, do not take away from me 
my only joy in life.” 

“But, unfortunate child,” I urged, while I also 
shared the contagious excitement of the moment, 
“ can you not understand, that if I should act con- 
trary to my reason, that you yourself would be lost.” 

“ I fear nothing but to lose you.” 

“So, then, you will insist upon belonging to 
me?” 

“ Do I not belong to you already, and is not my 

life entirely devoted to you ? ” 

I gazed long and steadily upon her; her frank 
expression did not change under my scrutinizing 
eye. In her face I read such volumes of love and 
innocence, entire forgetfulness of self, a devotion so 
blind, and such an absolute trust, that I could no 
longer resist the better instincts of my nature. 

“ What ! ” exclaimed I, “ you give yourself up to 
me, noble and ingenuous heart, without any calcula- 
tion, without even a thought for the future, pure and 


302 


MIONETTE. 


simple girl; you will sacrifice for me your peace of 
mind, your existence, and only ask in exchange a 
little friendship ; and I, weak-hearted, vulgar soul, 
I could hesitate. I, who have been betrayed by a 
grand lady, who fell in love with me and afterward 
refused to marry me ; I, who have been duped by a 
poor fool, who, in order to reward me for snatching 
her from the lowest of miseries, even degradation, 
betrayed me for some miserable low comedian ; . . . 
I would show myself in my turn vain, selfish, and 
ungrateful! No, the cowardice I have so often 
cursed in them shall never make me guilty toward 
you. Mionette, I honor and I love you ; you will be 
neither my servant nor my mistress, confiding and 
artless child ; before God and man, you shall be my 
wife!” 

“ Mionette, sir, is to-day Madame Vernier.” 

“ I suspected it,” was my reply. 

“ The preparations for the marriage,” continued 
my host, “ were short, and the ceremony took place 
as quietly as possible in the old and celebrated 
church of Saint-Gilles, in presence of only the ne- 
cessary witnesses. My little farm-house I gradually 
found too small ; so I bought and furnished — you 
know how — the one in which you have deigned to 


MIONETTE. 


303 


accept my simple hospitality. Resolved to shun the 
world and to establish a perfect equality between 
my wife and myself, I have become a peasant, since 
I cannot make Mionette a lady; bonnets with 
plumes and dresses with flounces would spoil her in 
my eyes. As far as lies within my means, I am sur- 
rounded by every comfort. You know my life ; 
you have seen me with my wife and child. They 
are the two poles of my horizon — the two terms of 
my existence. My heart, which was dead, they have 
called back to life. The time will soon arrive when 
the education of that dear little one will make for 
me the sweetest of recreations and the noblest of 
duties. God grant he may have a taste for farming 
like myself. It will not take long to make of him 
a happy, hardy, honest farmer. If the solitary life 
of the country should not please him, I will not 
oppose his preferences. He may choose for himself 
whether he will be a sailor, a soldier, an engineer, 
or even, if he wishes, a priest. But the deuce take 
me, if I ever make of him a lawyer, or a man of 
letters ! I love him too much for that.” 


304 


MIONETTE. 


vnx 

I had listened without interruption to the monk of 
Franquevaux. His tone was so sincere, a feeling 
so unaffected gave such a warmth to his every word, 
that I would have ill requited his cordial hospitality 
if I had allowed myself to differ from him on a point 
where his very existence and most delicate senti- 
ments were so deeply concerned. Although objec- 
tions more or less serious, more or less trifling, 
offered themselves to my mind, yet I did not give 
utterance to them, and my host displayed through 
all that stormy, gloomy day, a most charming gayety. 
It appeared as if the recollection of the dangers he 
had escaped, and which might have proved so dis- 
astrous to his future tranquillity of mind and con- 
science, only made him better appreciate the calm- 
ness of his existence and the realization of his 
present happiness. 

As it often happens in that climate, the next 
morning broke upon us with all the splendor of a 
southern sky, and most delightful weather succeeded 
the dreadful storm. Having taken leave of the 


MI0NETTE. 


305 


silent Madame Vernier, and bestowed a last caress 
on the little one who had lavished upon me an en- 
thusiastic affection, I bade adieu to my host. I 
have never seen him since ; but more than once the 
remembrance of him has stolen back to my mind. 
Often in the midst of a ball or some splendid scene 
at the theatre or opera, I find myself all of a 
sudden involuntarily musing on the solitary hunter 
of the Camargue, and the beautiful dona Mion, who, 
as I lend an indifferent ear to the accents of the 
speaker, or the strains of the music, are perhaps 
listening from their large canopied bed to the loud 
roaring of the wind and waves in the distance. 
Often, after a night of pleasure or study, as I turn 
lazily over, and court another of those indolent, un- 
healthy sleeps, the usual accompaniment of a Paris- 
ian morning, my thoughts will go back in spite of 
me to the monk of Franquevaux, who, at the same 
hour, opens his window to the rising sun, with an 
eager eye questions the horizon, and followed by his 
dogs, descends into the plain. 


THE END. 















*• 


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